


Echoes

by Iamnotreal



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: (at least not an adequate amount of comfort), (it stays on for quite some time), (kinda?), (like... seriously), AU, Aftermath of Torture, Angst and Feels, Blood and Injury, Cruel and Unusual, Enemies to Friends, Everyone Has Issues, Everyone Needs A Hug, F/F, F/M, Forced Muteness, Gen, Hurt Loki (Marvel), Hurt No Comfort, It Gets Worse, Just the regular kind of, Loki's Punishments (Marvel), Lost in space - Freeform, Multi, Muzzles, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Odin's A+ Parenting (Marvel), Panic Attacks, Post-Avengers (2012), Protective Natasha Romanov, Restraints, Self-Harm, Some even do get a hug but is solves literally none of their issues, Some more characters in later chapters, Starvation, Suicidal Ideation, Suicide Attempt, The author might have daddy issues, Torture, inept attempts at therapy, non-consensual bondage of the very much non-sexual kind, uninhibited villain apologetics
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-22
Updated: 2021-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-12 13:06:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 52
Words: 284,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29635077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Iamnotreal/pseuds/Iamnotreal
Summary: This isn't what agent Natasha Romanoff has signed up for. Because, seriously, there's a slight difference between a routine transport of a detainee from one place to another and getting hurled though space to the other side of the universe and having to survive with your only support being a homicidal alien who attacked your world not that long ago. Which is not at all made easier by the fact that said man cannot even talk.An AU starting post OG Avengers, now more fashionable than ever, since canon is doing it as well.
Relationships: Clint Barton & Natasha Romanov, Loki & Natasha Romanov
Comments: 197
Kudos: 122





	1. Routine operations

**Author's Note:**

> This is basically the crime that listening to too much M83 for too long gets you to commit against literary arts. 
> 
> The rating is mostly for mentions of bodily harm (that can go to the "body horror" areas if your imagination is vivid enough), suicide attempts (I mean, it’s a story with Loki in it, so that one’s a given), unsavoury language, general talk about sexuality as a concept, some non-sexual nudity, one sex scene with a very complicated consent and (spoilers?) some asexual/polyamorous relationships, of sorts (it's not a crucial part or the focus of the story, just kind of there). Nothing truly graphic, so it’s completely safe for work if you can deal with an occasional “fuck” here and there. 
> 
> This is a very old fic. I started working on it after I watched the original Avengers movie. In cinema. In 2012. I finished it in its base form about a year later. Which makes it an AU past that point, of course, because sadly I’m not a fortune-teller. 
> 
> On the downside – I originally wrote it as an exercise (I’m not a native English speaker) and it was the first piece of fiction I’ve ever written in that language that was more than a few paragraphs long, it automatically ended up on the “never to see the light of day” pile. Then I forgot about it, until late 2019. My memory is good but short, so reading it after all this time I had to follow the plot to know what’s going on. And I had a reasonable amount of fun and feels reading it, even if it’s not the best piece of literature this land has to offer. Then I decided to fix the most glaring mistakes and the project got out of control a bit. So, I thought, what the hell, I’ll share it, because I crave fake internet points like there’s no tomorrow.
> 
> On the upside – I’m forty two chapters in and the remaining twenty or so are already drafted and partially written and should be done before I’m done dumping the rest; it’s 240k words at this point and I intend to wrap it up at around 310-320k. Also, the story originally ended on chapter twenty-eight and the changes I’ve made to those are not significant enough for it to not stand on its two feet. So you can get to that point and consider it done, even if I die before I manage to finish it. 
> 
> I corrected a ton of mistakes that I’ve learned not to make any-more by now (like, all dialogue notations were broken, because I wasn’t entirely sure how you should do that in English, so I used the same notation my native language uses, which is, well, completely different and entirely inadequate). I’ve rewritten a lot of paragraphs in full. Added some corrections to make it lore-compliant where it was possible (spoiler: it’s not everywhere, and I suspect the upcoming BW movie is going to wreck my shit up even further). But it’s still not perfect and I’m aware of that. Articles are still the bane of my existence. Why do they even exist? Also, conditionals can go fuck themselves, I’m gonna do as I please. And while we are at the things that should go fuck themselves – Oxford commas, honestly, why do we bother? Also, I tend to overdose on some obscure grammatical forms that I know, for a change, how to use. Like starting multiple consecutive sentences with the same phrase. Or with “and”. Or “or”. At this point I’m willing to call it a style. 
> 
> I wish I had someone who’d beta read for me, but being on the wrong side of thirty and not an active member of the fandom I don’t have anybody I could dump that on. I’m going to embrace any sort of criticism you throw my way though, deal?
> 
> Last but not least, if it reads kinda stream-of-consciousness-y, that was the plan. Natasha struck me as a person who stays in her head a lot. (Let me know if it worked.)

“No, absolutely not, I’ve had enough of dealing with this shit for two lifetimes.”

“This is not a friendly request,” said agent whatever-the-hell-his-name-was, making another attempt at giving his plump face serious look and failing miserably, “but a direct order, agent Romanoff. Which is, to reiterate yet again, very well within the scope of my authority as your new commanding officer to issue.”

“I want to speak with director Fury,” she demanded. “He is the immediate superior over the Avengers initiative after Coulson… was killed in action”

Saying it out loud made it more real somehow. She clenched her fists and focused on not smashing her apparent new boss’ perfect white teeth back into his skull.

“The initiative’s operations have been suspended indefinitely after the utter failure in New York,” he explained in a dismissive tone, “and Director Fury is preoccupied with other important matters at the moment. _I_ have been granted the charge over the remaining agents of the former Coulson’s team. At least for the time being, until a proper chain of command is reestablished.”

An utter failure? Has she been watching some different news than this guy?

“You still should be talking to Banner, not to me,” she said, “if you want the little prince to behave, the Hulk has a sure-fire method.”

“The task is to be handled without an involvement of unauthorized parties.”

Okay, so SHIELD lost Banner again. Great. “What about Stark?”

“Mr. Stark is just a consultant and it’s been decided that his expertise is not required at this moment.”

 _Just a consultant_ , with a massive hangover to nurse and a city to clean up, _thank you very much_. Because it was a given they’ve asked him; it was just his freshly-grown ethical backbone that didn’t allow him to stoop so low.

“Decided by who?!” she yelled, standing up and smashing her hands on the desk.

“Agent Romanoff,” he said in a measured, calm tone, even if his hand hovered over the area of his desktop where the hidden emergency button was located, “do I really need to remind you of the consequences for a failure to follow a direct command?”

She sat down and smiled sweetly. He was absolutely terrified of her, which was exactly what she wanted _._

“Of course not, _sir_ , we are just discussing the technical details of the mission, aren’t we?” she said with a slight rise of her eyebrows. She batted her eyelashes at him and bit her lower lip, confusing him even further.

He shook his head and moved his hand back to the stack of papers in front of him. “Of course.”

“What about the good Captain?”

“Captain Rogers has been assigned a different objective,” he said, “I’m not authorized to share any more details.”

So, Rogers was handling the cube. Because that worked out just _so peachy_ the last time.

“And Thor?”

“Thor will accompany you and your unit on the mission. He volunteered and his request has been exceptionally granted.”

Natasha imagined that quivering piece of meat saying “no” to the god of thunder and almost burst into laughter. “Who do I get besides the stormy boy?”

“Agents Rowlett and Simmons and eight remaining guys from the former Strike Team Delta,” he listed, “including Barton.”

“What?! Who the hell thought this is a good idea?!” she raised her voice again and took joy in watching her higher-up twitch nervously. “Barton hasn’t been cleared for active duty yet.”

Not to mention that putting Clint anywhere close to Loki was an astonishingly dumb concept that could not result in anything good for any party involved.

“Agent Barton’s isn’t under any official evaluation at the moment and his presence has been requested by the Council. Is that all, agent Romanoff?” he asked dryly and, after she nodded, he added, “the debriefing starts at fourteen hundred.”

\---

Natasha left the office, closing the door a bit too eagerly behind her.

But of course, this is _exactly_ how the Council did things when they wrestled a bit of control from Director Fury. Assign a person who was mind controlled by a space alien to an escort of said space alien to see if they snaps. Saves a lot of paperwork.

Or it could've been Pierce's idea to test Fury's team loyalty.

There was even a more obvious answer. Pierce needed something to happen, something to justify Council’s armed forces stepping in and Pierce getting his hands back on the steering wheel.

Politics were only fun if she was the one moving the pawns.

She should’ve known this is how it’s going to play out. The original plan was too convenient and too straightforward, and they couldn’t have that, oh no, that would be just _too easy_.

Thor’s wish was to ship the wannabe Earth conqueror, along with the Tesseract, to Asgard, hopefully never to be seen again, ever. Fury begrudgingly accepted, presumably reasoning that he had enough of aliens throwing tantrums on his planet for the day. He even agreed to surrender the cube just to get Loki off his lawn.

Getting rid of two problems in one swing sounded like a decent deal for Natasha and she was willing to overlook the personal issues she had with just letting Loki go for the whole humdrum to be done and over with. She managed to convince herself it’s for the best, the sooner they can solve this, the sooner they can start dealing with the fallout. People deserved their lives to be back to normal. And sure, American public would appreciate the culprit being branded, set out on a display, and punished harshly, just to send out a message, but sometimes you just couldn’t have your cake and eat it too.

It was not a sentiment everyone shared. For example, World Security Council’s Secretary Pierce had that peculiar notion that Fury’s acceptance of Thor’s solution was premature and that their captive should be interrogated, put on trial as a war criminal and locked up. Not necessarily in that order.

This resulted in a long – and quite turbulent, judging from all the shouting – negotiations held behind closed doors between Fury and Pierce.

Natasha could tell, just from her and Fury's shared history, that he was playing the devil's advocate arguing for Thor’s side and under any other circumstances he would support Pierce's solution all the way. Hell, he would add some shady experiments to the mix, in the name of the scientific progress; their _guest_ was just too perfect of an opportunity to miss out on. But Thor was an alien and a royal to boot with an entire race of fucking space Norse gods behind him and assuring that didn’t come back to bite them in the ass was far more important than holding on to one prisoner and a magical box that was already studied back and forth by multiple generations of scientists.

Thor was not too happy even with the fact that it was being decided without his involvement. Especially after he was stopped – on two separate occasions – from storming the room and demanding an immediate release of his brother. Or half-brother. Or adopted brother. Or _however it went_. Hill's remarkably levelled explanations that this is Earth, which is currently not – to her best knowledge – under Asgard's jurisdiction and that his brother is responsible for multiple casualties did not exactly click either. It turned out Thor’s respect for human life was not that much higher than Loki’s, unless it was someone he personally cared about.

In the end, the potentially sticky situation was, yet again, defused by Stark, who insisted they should celebrate their victory, by going out for shawarma then getting completely shitfaced on Stark Tower’s impressive arsenal of overpriced booze. It must've spoken to some long-standing Space Vikings’ tradition, because Thor immediately agreed, the entire Loki situation seemingly forgotten.

She knew better than to leave a literal god, an eccentric billionaire, a rage monster in disguise, a WWII supersoldier and an archer with a grudge to drink themselves to death while celebrating the victory, order, or no order. So, there was eating and drinking and an obscenely high amount of singing (mostly by Thor, mostly of completely uncomprehensive Asgardian folk ballads. It turned out that whatever space magic bullshit mumbo jumbo caused Thor to speak English, it didn't extend to ancient sung poetry. She could tell it was poetry. It _rhymed_.).

Shawarma turned out to be just a fancy name for poultry kebab.

To be fair, Captain Rogers did excuse himself early. So did Doctor Banner, making solidly sounding evasions about healthy lifestyle and waking up early. She didn’t find proper to point out how obvious it was that he was quite shaken with the damage Hulk dealt to the invading force and public property. Still, it looked like he used the situation wisely and disappeared from the face of Earth by the morning.

Stark and Thor, alone in the evacuated tower while high on adrenaline (or whatever it was for _space aliens_ ) and drunk as all hell (or tipsy, when it came to Thor), meant trouble. She stayed. And her head didn't exactly feel better for it now.

Clint stayed too. Under normal circumstances he wouldn’t be able to leave the SHIELD’s compound for months at the very best, being questioned, tested and retested before he could be cleared for active duty again. But the upper echelons of the agency were running in circles like chickens with their heads lopped off, trying to perform anything resembling damage control and it looked like that particular issue slipped everyone’s attention; or so she thought, then. Now, she wasn’t so sure. But whatever SHIELD’s executives decided to do – or not do – with Barton, it was pretty clear it will take some time for him to recover, especially considering how he apparently decided that getting drunk was as good of a therapy as, well, actual therapy.

She wished she could help, do something to make him better, but his injuries were that of mind and not of body and those took the longest to heal. And, as much as she hated the idea of Clint being dragged back into this mess, she was glad she could at least keep an eye on him when he needed her to have his six.

And, even with that few extra steps, it should be over soon enough. The compromise that have been reached while they were celebrating indeed looked like a win-win one, at least on the drafting table. Her new boss decided to not clue her in fully, he probably didn’t know more than he needed to do his job at least semi-competently. But from what he did share she got that SHIELD was granted forty-eight hours for wrapping up all the ongoing Tesseract research and for little prince's _questioning_ , after which both will be handed to Thor and shipped to the magical city in the sky, to be dealt with according to whatever laws and customs Asgard upheld. It pushed the timeline two days forward, but on a global scale it didn’t change much, and Thor might have just about enough patience to not grow restless and go on a head-smashing rampage in the meantime. Probably.

It didn’t mean she had to be happy to be a part of it.

_What else is new?_

\---

The screens on the wall of the debriefing room displayed live broadcasts from various tv stations, both local and national, every single one showing either street level reports and interviews or replays from the New York battle, the screen crawls screaming in bold letters about estimated numbers of dead, injured, and monetary damages.

It was a cheap psychological trick to get them all riled up, to remind them that – no matter what followed – they were in the right, Natasha knew. But damn it to hell if it wasn’t effective.

“Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine,” said Clint in a low voice when she sat next to him at the table, ignoring all the other agents. She should probably interact with her new team, but it was clearly a temporary situation, more of a rag-tag group of survivors than an actual unit. All of them were experienced agents, so they should be able to handle themselves even without a meaningless pep talk.

There were folders, actual, honest-to-gods paper folders, on the table in front of each seat. It’s been a while since SHIELD used those, but it looked like having their server mainframe hacked by a civilian AI and then partially fried with a well-aimed arrow, all within a span of two hours, forced them to make amendments with the traditional media in no time.

Barton’s file wasn’t even opened.

“You okay?” she asked.

He nodded. “My head hurts and it feels like I could sleep for the next twenty hours if I got to lie down, but other than that I’m doing great.”

“It isn’t exactly how I planned my evening to go either,” she snarked. “I was envisioning something more in line of taking a long shower, reading a book, or watching a movie. Or whatever else you regular, boring people do to pass your time. I was completely prepared to burn the Brooklyn safehouse for that.”

“Did you really? I wouldn’t suspect you’re capable of such extravagances,” he teased, “all the taxpayers’ money it cost to set up and you were going to use it just to take a bath?”

“Give me a break,” she said, “besides, I said ‘a shower’, there’s no bathtub in that apartment.”

“You need to file an official complaint, this is inexcusable.”

“Oh yes, I’m sure our new blobfish of a boss would love to hear about that.”

“You’ve met him?” he asked, surprise sneaking into his voice, “all I got was a text.”

“Yeah,” she admitted, wondering whether she was singled out for a personal conversation and for what reason. “You haven’t lost much.” Was Clint not fully aware of the mission’s objective?

She had no opportunity to ask, as at this moment the door opened, and Agent Blobfish stepped into the room. He eyed her warily, she noticed not without a certain degree of satisfaction. So, she _was_ the only one he spoke to thus far. _This is going to be interesting._

“Good afternoon,” he started and readjusted his tie. “My name’s Lemaire. Some of you may already know me, some might not, but we have no time for pleasantries as our new assignment is a time sensitive one. All you need to know is that, from now on and until further notice, you’ll be answering directly to me, and only to me.”

The room took his words in strides, too much weird shit went down since yesterday for the people to be fazed by a new figurehead stepping in and taking command. Even Clint’s face stayed carefully neutral. She was sure he was just as disgusted with someone taking Coulson’s place so unceremoniously as she was, but he was too experienced to think that his feelings mattered when it came to the agency’s operations.

“You will be securing a convoy,” Blobfish went on, without beating around the bush, “for the course of the next thirty-six hours.”

“What’s in the convoy?” asked one of the agents, a robust, black guy. Natasha met him before, but they’ve never worked together. His name was Davis, or something generic like that. 

Natasha sat back. _Here we go._

The scenes of destruction and mayhem disappeared from the screens with a press of a button, replaced with a tilled nighttime image of a gathering of people on a city plaza. Blobfish fumbled with the remote and all but one images disappeared then a video started playing. It was a CCTV recording from Stuttgart, she realized, the opening night of Loki’s short-lived world domination tour.

Loki’s incomprehensive vernacular might have taken the edge off his words, but it didn’t make him any less threatening.

She heard the later part of the speech relayed live to the Quinjet, and she could clearly remember hearing it in English. And, even as they’ve already figured out that the thingy that made Asgardians being understood by all didn’t work over recordings, only live, it was still a surreal experience to hear it as it was actually spoken. It was the same language Thor was using while he was… performing, and, just like then, she couldn’t understand a word of it, but its melody already sounded somewhat familiar. The syntax and accentuation didn’t resemble any human language that she could recognize, but it was nonetheless not completely alien either. She was sure there were droves of linguists and gigaflops of SHIELD servers’ computational power poring over various recordings and the transcripts provided by witnesses. Stark’s super advanced AI was probably doing the exact same thing. She gave it a couple of days at most before they’d have a working translation tool.

For now, though, they had to rely on subtitles.

On the screen, Captain America entered the fold and Blobfish paused the video. That got a few discontented grunts out of the gathered men. Natasha smiled. While the events in New York went way beyond the threshold of something that could be kept hidden, were widely televised and considered general knowledge, Loki’s war declaration in Germany was not. A couple of videos recorded by onlookers that popped up on the internet were thoroughly scrubbed off by SHIELD’s algorithms, within seconds of uploading. They still hoped they could keep it low profile, then. 

“Uhm, so… are we transporting the staff?” asked Davis, “I’ve heard it was taken by the guys from R&D division, what do you need us for?”

A little bit of internal unrest was enough for SHIELD’s strict secrecy protocols to start leaking at the seams. Davis was not supposed to know that. _She_ wasn’t supposed to know that, even if she was the one holding the glowstick when it was secured.

Instead of answering, Blobfish pressed some buttons again. _Come on, just tell them already, you’ll run out of videos before they guess correctly._

Another recording started playing. _Okay, maybe not._ There was no sound, but it wasn’t needed. It showed a top-down view of a concrete cell, empty, bare for a lonely figure, sitting by one of the walls and staring fiercely into the lens of the camera with an expression that screamed bloody murder, unmistakable even from the distance.

Clint’s eyes narrowed to slits and his hands curled into fists under the table, but he didn’t say a word or looked away from the screen.

Davis leaned to the agent who sat next to him. “Is that… the same guy?”

She couldn’t blame Davis for asking. Stripped off his armor, with marks from suddenly meeting Stark's floor multiple times still visible on exposed parts of his skin, wrapped in a set of high security SHIELD restraints and with the freaky Asgardian muzzle covering the lower half of his face Loki looked more like a sadist's early Christmas present than the world conquering supervillain from the previous recording.

Simmons nodded. He was one of three people in the room who had the questionable pleasure of meeting Loki up close.

“But… Stark said he has been taken… off world, or something,” Davis said under his breath, “in that press conference last night.”

“Dude, Stark saying shit on tv doesn’t make it true,” Simmons whispered back. “Remember when he declared he is stopping with making weapons only to break out that fancy flying suit of his a week later?”

A wave of agitated murmurs rose around the room.

“Gentlemen!” Blobfish slammed his fist on the table, “and ladies,” he added, looking at Natasha. “Are you a bunch of gossiping fishwives? Or the cream of the crop of the most experienced agents I’ve been promised?”

Natasha needed to employ all her will to not roll her eyes. They were not the chosen ones. They were the leftovers. Yet, that that still did it for the rest and there was silence again.

At least until Clint spoke up. “So… Loki,” he said in an empty tone, “that’s who we are escorting.”

“Yes, agent Barton,” came a reply. “Do you wish to voice any objections?”

“No, sir,” Clint grounded through clenched teeth and gave Natasha his best you-have-to-be-kidding-me sideway glare. She shrugged one shoulder slightly.

“I have one, actually” interjected Davis and stood up, “didn’t it take a bunch of superpowered folk to put him down yesterday? What use are we going to be when something happens? To my best knowledge none of us can fly or shoot laser beams from our fingertips. And us getting the least awesome duo of the so-called _Avengers_ isn’t gonna change that! No offence, agent Romanoff, agent Barton.”

“None taken,” Natasha murmured. Clint just shook his head. It wasn’t anything they haven’t heard whispered behind their backs before. And it was a valid point. 

“I was assured the prisoner is properly pacificated and his powers are contained,” Blobfish said, like he was reading a prepared statement, “and this is nothing more than a standard transfer operation. You should expect no complications.”

“Why do you need a dozen men for that _standard operation_ then?” chipped in Simmons. “Just stash him in a black van and drop him off wherever you want him to go.”

That was also a valid point.

Blobfish took a breath, clearly annoyed that his new subordinates dare to voice their concerns. He was obviously not used to working with agents who were given a free hand at planning their own movements after being presented with an objective. “It’s been decided that the prisoner is to be relocated offshore, due to security reasons.”

 _Security reasons my ass,_ Natasha thought.

“There have been reports of other, _third-party_ contingents, that could be interested with the… intelligence the detainee might provide,” he explained in a tone as if he was speaking to a group of unruly preschoolers. “There’s no confirmation to those rumors, but it is the matter of an utmost importance to assure the safety and secrecy of the mission.”

It sounded like a stock standard bullshit, but it made some basic sense, even if assuming Loki would give them – or anyone – anything useful even under duress was like splitting hide on a living bear. US government lacked no enemies, both internal and external, and a strike against the weakened giant, the day after a goddamned alien invasion, would probably look like an enticing plan to some of them, with a potential, powerful ally with a raging hate boner against Uncle Sam coming as a bonus. But that would also mean that they had much bigger problems than this; a mole somewhere up in the hierarchy, as the fact that Loki was still on Earth was definitely not well known amongst the general public.

Or that was just an easy excuse. She had quite a few ideas why they would want Loki out of sight – and the area of jurisdiction – of whichever agency might even be concerned with his wellbeing. Or the legality of the due process. The Helicarrier was usually the ideal solution for the more… clandestine stuff, as it could be moved anywhere without attracting unwanted scrutiny, but it was down in the docks in DC for repairs and would be out of service at least for a couple more weeks, the time they didn’t have. No, they would use one of the floating bases on the Pacific, of which existence she had absolutely no idea, of course. Or the fucking Gitmo, because why should it go to waste after it was officially decommissioned by the president? It sure matched the profile of the whole operation nicely.

And why was even SHIELD still in on that, isn’t that what CIA is for? It is sitting much cozier in the Council’s grasp too; no rogue agents, no self-ruling units, just a bunch of jobsworths following orders.

“So there _could_ be complications,” Davis stated bleakly. “Is that what you’re saying?”

“Not of the nature a group of well-trained men couldn’t handle,” said Blobfish, “also, your role is mainly to act as support. Thor Odinson will be on board with you and I’ve been told he is well capable of controlling the prisoner on his own.”

“Thor, like the big blond dude with the flying hammer?” asked Simmons.

“Yes.”

“You should have started with that,” said Davis and the room erupted into laughter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The notation I use for Natasha's surname is not a mistake but a conscious choice. It is one of the alternative Latin alphabet notations of the Russian surname Романова and there's a reason why she uses it instead (plus, I'm pretty sure MCU uses that as well, but I'm too lazy to check).
> 
> The more you know: “splitting the skin on a living bear” is a semi-direct translation of a Russian idiom “делить шкуру неубитого медведя” which means, more or less, “to count the chickens before they hatch.” Only with bears because duh. It fits better in context than the anglosphere equivalent, so I left it like that.


	2. Flying

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which things go from shit to more shit.

“I don’t like this,” said Clint, as they walked down the corridors towards the armory.

“I know,” she said, “neither do I.”

“I don’t understand why they even want me on,” he continued grimly, “after I’ve been compromised.”

“Lemaire said something about Council requesting you, personally, for the mission,” she whispered. It didn’t make much of a difference, the microphones built into security cameras were sensitive enough to catch a moth batting its wings on the other side of the room, so if someone was listening they would still hear it, but it seemed like something she shouldn’t say out loud. “I’m not sure if that’s pure bullshit or if the bunch of talking heads cooked up a plan based on something going down.”

Clint stopped and raised an eyebrow. “So… they think Loki might flip his shit if he sees me or something?”

“I don’t know, maybe? Or maybe that you would when you see _him_?”

“You know that won’t happen.”

“Yes, I do, but they probably don’t.”

He sighed. “And what if he does… if he gets into my brain again?”

“I’ll bash you over the head once more,” she grinned. “It worked just splendidly the last time I tried. Come on, the wheels are up in sixty and I still want to take at least a quick shower before we go.”

“I’m serious, Nat.”

“So am I,” she said and started walking again.

“I can tell you’re not!” he yelled after her. She didn’t stop. He had to jog to catch up with her. “And why are _you_ in?”

“No idea,” she admitted. “Maybe they want to rub in the fact that he lost a verbal sparring to a _mere mortal_ before the actual carnival begins?”

“So they didn’t ask you to take a part in the interrogation?”

“Nope.”

“You’re sure?”

She sent him a disappointed glance. “You think I wouldn’t tell you?”

He glowered back.

“Okay,” she chuckled, “okay, you got me. But they didn’t ask. Scout’s word. And I’m glad that they didn’t. I’ve heard that job hunting in our field is tedious.”

“You’re like the only person in the entire agency that has any positive record in the area,” he pointed out, “and don’t tell me you’d quit over this.”

“I don’t know, maybe I would, maybe I wouldn’t. I’m unpredictable like that,” she said lightly, and then added, in a more serious tone, “I really, really don’t like this. I thought the whole Avengers shtick was about turning a new leaf, about doing things right for a change. But this… this doesn’t play well with my stomach.”

“You had no issues with getting Loki to spill his beans before.”

“That was different. I needed the information and I _talked_ it out, as simple as that,” she said, “I didn’t need to go any further.”

“But you would, if you had to,” he said, matter-of-factly.

“Yes, I would. You know damn well I would, because – among other things – your life depended on it. I would fucking drag Loki through a pit of hot coals or wring his neck on the spot if I knew it could solve things, without ever looking back,” she spat angrily. “But that was a clean situation. We were at war. We are not anymore.” 

“So, you’d want what, a more _artful_ approach?” he snapped, “the fucker’s not even human, why do you care?”

“I don’t. But he is still a person, Clint” she said quietly, “a batshit crazy, murderous, alien piece of work, but still a person. And I know you can’t see it like that, and I would be mad if I blamed you as I honestly struggle to see it myself. And I believe the best he deserves is a swift hand of justice, if only for the stuff he did to you, not to mention all the harm and devastation… You know I do. I just…” she paused and looked him in the eyes. “Not like this. This is one of the things I did _before_ that I hoped I would never have to do again, okay?”

He didn’t have to ask for clarifications, he knew exactly what she meant.

“You know, he can always just play it nice and easy and answer all the questions without a need for coercion,” he spoke up after they’ve been walking in silence for a while, “saving everyone a lot of time and hassle in the process.”

“Oh yes, I’m sure that is _exactly_ how it’s going to play out, Loki has been such a gleaming beacon of friendliness and cooperation so far.”

“Well, he did tone it down a bit after Hulk smashed some sense into him.”

“Don’t tell me you’re buying it.”

“I don’t know,” Clint threw out his hands, “I’m just entertaining a thought, for the sake of your fragile sensibilities.”

“Very funny,” she muttered, without even a hint of amusement in her voice.

There was another beat of silence.

“I wonder how they will work around Thor being there,” Clint said with a frown. “He seems awfully protective of his little piece of shit of a brother.”

“Distract him with a coloring book?” she suggested and shrugged.

“You really think that little of his smarts?”

“His what?”

Barton laughed and the sound suddenly made her feel a lot better.

“So, do you know who is leading the _fun_ side of the party?” he asked.

“No idea. I tried prodding Blobfish about it, but he wouldn’t tell me,” she replied, “I’m not entirely positive he even knows himself.”

“Right. I’m not sure what hole in the ground they dug that potato from, but it must’ve been very deep and very moist, for him to be such a slippery turd. I kind of suspected we won’t be getting two competent COs in a row,” Clint said, the smile all but gone. “Any guesses though?”

“Not Fury, that’s a given. It looks like he basically washed his hands off the whole Loki deal at this point. And this sort of dirty work doesn’t line up with his job title.”

“He still likes to hit the field once in a while,” Clint remarked and quickly reconsidered, “but yeah, he would probably sit this one out. And he has his own pile of shit to deal with.”

“Walker, maybe?”

“No, I think he is still wrapped up in the cleanup in Germany.”

“Sitwell?”

“I bet he is royally pissed he didn’t get to sit in Phil’s chair,” Clint hissed, “and he would jump with joy at the notion of doing anything even remotely important.”

“So, Sitwell it is?”

“I guess. Geez, I hate that overgrown cucurbit.”

“What’s a cucurbit?”

“It’s like a squash, but yellow. And more disgusting.”

“What’s with you and all the vegetable references today?”

“I don’t know. I’m always hungry when I’m hungover.”

They’ve reached the passage leading into the armory. Natasha stopped and grabbed Clint’s hand. He stopped too and turned to face her, without taking his hand away.

“Listen,” she said, “I know it’s all fucked up. I know you want to go home. But it’s just a small hiccup. If everything goes smoothly, we fly in, hang out with the boys for a day or two and fly back. And if it doesn’t, if Loki tries anything even remotely suspicious, you get your opportunity to put that arrow through his eye and we are on our merry way.”

She squeezed his hand. He returned the gesture, braiding their fingers together.

“I love your pep talks, Nat. Concise and straight to the point.”

“I know you do,” she smiled, turned on her heel and walked away to take her well-deserved shower. 

\---

Natasha was trying very hard not to think about what life choices lead her to this point. It was in vain and the outcome of those musings was always the same – it was out of her control.

She tried not to think about a lot of other things too. Like the fact, that – instead of lounging on a sofa with a bottle (or a few) of beer, dressed in loose pajamas – she had to sit in a Quinjet's hold stuffed with sweaty SHIELD agents and that the main reason for this whole mess currently sat strapped to his seat on the opposite side of the hold, just a few steps away.

Or about the part of the plan where Thor did all the guarding and Natasha and her team played second fiddle and acted as a backup, the same one that went down the drain pretty damn instantly. Thor not only showed up late (apparently the attachment to precise time measurements was a purely human invention that confused him greatly) but also, just before stepping on board, he announced that he doesn't like flying in enclosed vessels and will accompany them on the outside, _riding his hammer_. Which looked just as ridiculous as it sounded but it was strange few days and there wasn’t a single person who was in a mood to argue with a dude who could summon lightings at will. Natasha just sighed and ordered a scramble.

It didn't escape her attention that Thor's sudden change of heart came just after he laid his eyes on Loki for the first time since the skirmish. Which, as she’s learned by now, was dubbed, accurately even if not too creatively, „The Battle of New York” by the media.

She couldn't blame Thor, not really.

Loki looked like shit, no two ways around it, wearing a thin tunic instead of his usual fancy dressing gown, still bruised, chained and muzzled like a circus beast. The restless night he’s spent in the bowels of the SHIELD’s Long Island facility only added dark circles under his eyes to the overall miserable appearance. She had to begrudgingly admire the stubbornness though, with which he still held himself upright and kept his back straight, clinging on to the last remnants of dignity, just as he was half led, half dragged onboard by two guards in full combat gear. Who were obviously handpicked from the ranks by the visual criteria alone as they were both taller and a lot bulkier than their charge. 

And, while Natasha might not be buying the act of a graceful surrender Loki was sticking to after his defeat, Thor apparently has been falling for his brother's schemes for the good part of the last millennium, including getting stabbed in the gut in the middle of a there-must-be-good-in-you monologue just the other day, so his reaction didn’t exactly shock her. Even if she would feel safer having Thor on board, that was one potential issue to strike off the list at the same time. Which left only like a million of other potential issues still on it.

Natasha didn't trust the restraints either, in case Loki decided to dash. They looked impressive; made out of some new-fangled alloy that would make Stark's titanium-gold blush and designed for enhanced individuals, but still for humans and they might not prove effective enough against someone who brushed off explosions, managed to survive a beating from Hulk with just a few scratches and a small limp that cleared in a couple of hours and came from the same race as Thor, who probably wouldn't notice if he was shot in the head with a standard issue Beretta at close range. Nor did she dig the fancy headgear that was supposed to stop their prisoner from _spellcasting_ (because that was the world she lived in now). But at least the muzzle had the blissful effect of stopping Loki from speaking. Another elaborate words game as a rehash of the conversation they had on the Helicarrier was about the last thing to wish for now.

And from the look of things, it was what Loki was thinking about. At least judging from the inquisitive stare he parked on her, the moment he was transferred onboard. He seemed to pay no attention to any of the very stressed-out agents.

Or even to Clint, who picked a seat located as far as humanly possible from Loki, deep into the tail section of the plane. He didn’t deem Loki worthy of a single glance, as far as she could tell, but he still held himself stiffly. He was probably pondering whether he should skip the whole shindig and go straight for the arrow in the eye socket phase. So far it looked like his willingness to have it done and over with on the violence-free terms was winning.

It seemed like Pierce’s plan, if it was a plan at all, wasn’t going to succeed, which was exactly the outcome she rooted for.

“The best thing you can hope for is no excitement at all and everything going the boring way,” Coulson always said with a crooked smile during debrief meetings. Oh, how much better those were than the full two hours of crap they’ve just lived through.

Coulson, who was dead. Killed by the very man sitting just across the hold from her.

There it was again, the rush of adrenaline and the call for murder circling through her veins. Despite all the pompous words she said earlier, there was still a thought of a ruthless and pointed revenge lurking at the back of her head. Just laying her eyes on Loki was enough to bring it forward and make it bloom into its full glory again. How good it would feel to grab him by his pale neck and just snap it. Or crush it and feel the life seep through her fingers… She trusted her self-control, she knew for a fact that she wouldn’t do anything unprompted, but it was still satisfying to let the idea run free in her imagination. 

Loki was still staring at her, his expression unreadable but not necessarily blank either. Curious, maybe? If he was aware that the next two days or so are probably going to make it to the list of the worst days of his life, it didn’t show up on his face. 

_What the fuck do you want? You want to play a game? Fine, let's play a game._

Natasha was good at games.

She tipped her head up a bit, just enough to make it look deliberate, and met his gaze.

If she surprised him, he didn't let her know. He crooked his head to the side, studying the change of air. 

She wondered whether his worn-out look was the result of the battle or a precuring condition, but her memories didn't provide a definite resolution to that question. He terrified her, back in Germany, on the Helicarrier, and what she saw of him during the battle and her mind unanimously painted him as this looming, threatening, larger-than-life presence.

It wasn't the petrifying, paralyzing fear she remembered from her childhood, from the early days in the Red Room. That was schooled out of her soon enough. No, it was a survival instinct, a reminder to never underestimate one’s enemy. And she didn't, even as she stood, arm to arm with the Avengers, feeling awfully underprepared, with her entire arsenal consisting of two standard issue pistols and a few martial arts moves.

She knew right away that Loki and his army of abominations were so far out of her league, the whole situation fit more for fantasy books, for pages full of vile monsters and brave heroes. She wasn't a hero. Maybe the others were, but her? Just a soldier. Or maybe a spy, although the distinction was getting blurrier and blurrier as the time went on. She just did what she had to do, like always. 

Was Loki a classic, moustache twirling lord of all evil? He sure looked the part, then, with that ridiculous cape, horned headpiece and a glowing wizard's staff. Now? Not so much. But Natasha lived on this world long enough to not trust appearances. And it didn’t change the fact that he frightened her then and he frightened her now just as well.

And, as much as she hated the idea behind SHIELD’s plans for Loki’s immediate future, she couldn’t muster any positive feelings towards the man himself. Thousands of innocent people have died. A huge chunk of Manhattan was levelled, _again_. And it would be much, much worse if not for Stark's quick thinking. It might be worth of pity, to see someone fall so far from a place of power so quickly, under any other circumstances. But in those exact circumstances that vindictive part of Natasha's mind plainly cheered at the sight, while all the other parts just couldn’t care less.

He shouldn’t be able to get away with what he did, but it looked like – besides whatever forms of punishment Earth dished out over the course of the next forty-eight hours – he was going to, and it set her blood to boiling with rage.

Thor didn't elaborate on what future awaited his brother back home, but Natasha doubted it would be even anywhere close to what he deserved. In what she remembered of Norse mythology, Asgard’s pantheon quite enjoyed poetic justice, eternal torment, bodily mutilation and chopping off appendages as punishment, but judging from Loki’s rather relaxed reaction to his capture it was pretty obvious that's not the case. He wasn't afraid of whatever awaited him in Asgard. He seemed... relieved, even.

But that was probably just a part of the game.

Because it was a game, no questions about it. What was the purpose was anybody's guess, but if Natasha had to bet, she would say it has something to do with winning leniency from the mighty king in the sky castle.

Whether it would be successful or not she couldn’t tell, but she had her suspicions; Asgard didn’t seem all that keen on controlling Loki. Thor begrudgingly admitted his brother wreaked some havoc upon their home before and Natasha saw the outcome of their little grudge match in New Mexico with her own eyes, when her team was sent there to clean up the mess (even if she had no idea he was even involved, then, as no one deemed it worthy to clue her in until the spectacular encore from yesterday). And yet he was somehow still free to roam the world – the universe – and spread dissent and ruin wherever he went.

It also bothered her quite a bit they still had no idea what Loki's real motive was and – maybe even more – than no one seemed that interested to find out. Because, no matter how much she wanted to have a definitive answer, she didn't for a moment believe the “to rule as a benevolent king” line. Coulson was right, Loki lacked conviction. But the Council, and, by extension, SHIELD was more interested in how, not _why_.

Still, no matter what the true reason was or if it was anything more than a childish fancy to just ruin stuff for others, the resulting mayhem was not something to be erased and forgotten anytime soon. She was sure everyone on board shared her sentiment in that matter.

Well, maybe besides Loki, but no one was asking him.

Not that he could or that he looked interested in giving them any answer whatsoever. At least for the moment. She was damn sure that whatever “the things that were explicitly banned by Geneva conventions to try on Loki” laundry list consisted of, SHIELD would be working through it tirelessly, point by point, until they changed that. She wondered if he truly wasn’t fazed by that or if he was just that good at pretending he wasn’t. Because she suspected he could read the room well enough to have at least a basic idea of what’s going on.

But maybe he just learned his lesson that Natasha was to be respected when it came to word games. Or staring contests, for that matter.

She slanted her eyes and sneered at him. She was going to win this one too.

She didn't hope to get any sort of reaction yet, so it surprised her that he suddenly looked away, somewhere to her left, and a different sort of expression painted on his face.

Panic, a pure, unadulterated fear.

She instinctively followed his line of sight.

Then there was a flood of bright blue light and the entire hold exploded.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Natasha is not the nicest person in her head.


	3. Falling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which things fall. Down or to pieces, depending on who's asking.

The first thing Natasha got to see after the flash subsided was Davis, who just a few seconds ago sat right next to her. He was dead, a darkened piece of fuselage piercing his skull, blood soaking the collar of the black uniform. There was another body laying prone on the ground, one arm missing.

A gash was ripped through the side of the jet's hull, big enough to fit a grown man, twice over. There should be a rush of air escaping the ship because of decompression, but there wasn't. Something was blocking the way, some sort of a glowing energy shield. It shared the same blue color of the initial burst.

They were not moving, either, but Natasha was pretty sure they didn't crash. The damage to the airship would be different if they crashed. It was like the jet was stopped, suspended in midair. 

_ Fucking space aliens with their fucking magic tricks.  _

The tail section was cut away with a similar energy field. She could make out the rushed movement of the surviving agents scrambling to action on the other side, but there was no sound, like the barrier cut that completely off. Or maybe that was just the shrill ringing in her ears drowning all the other sounds.

Maybe it was also the reason she just only noticed someone is speaking. She looked up.

There was... something, standing between the two rows of seats. Humanoid, but much taller than any man, lanky, gray skinned, with an oval, ridged, nooseless face, deep set eyes and a thin line of mouth. Slightly reptilian. Wearing some sort of intricate coat, not unlike what Loki was wearing earlier, but in monochrome, just like the rest of its features. There was a silver necklace around its neck, a pendant with a big, blue stone sitting in the middle of the creature’s chest. It was gleaming faintly, with the same ominous blue sheen.

This is not how she envisioned the _third-party_ Blobfish went on about. 

It seemed to pay her no attention. It was focused on the other side of the chamber, where Loki still sat strapped down to his seat, looking absolutely petrified.

Alien's high-pitched voice did not fit the physique in the slightest, making it hard to pin down its gender. If it even had any.

“...delivered to our lord, to serve a just punishment for your failure, just as promised.”

With that, the creature flipped its wrist and the straps holding Loki in place released. Another flick, and his body contorted and raised from the seat, a foot off the ground. He struggled, fruitlessly, as there wasn't much wiggle room between whatever power that held him and the restraints.

“You make only enemies wherever you go, godling. Even those lowly creatures opposed you,” the alien droned, gesturing around. “There is no one to save you.”

The creature waved its hand again. The gem’s glow flared up and the air between them and the cut-out tail section shimmered and parted, creating an incision in reality, a plane of pure blackness with edges made of billowing blue smoke. A portal. 

Natasha slowly unbuckled her seat belt.

“Hey, fuckface!” she shouted, standing up, her double pistols drawn and pointed at creature's head. “No one is taking him anywhere before we are done.”

It didn’t move or even turn its head but still froze its hand mid-gesture. She didn't wait for a reply, just pulled the triggers. First bullet bounced right off the alien's skull; second got waved away with a flick of hand.

The gunshots were not enough to do any damage, but they did a good job as a distraction, alien's concentration lost. She moved, her legs slightly bent to keep her balance and compensate for the shaking of the aircraft, to face it, positioning herself between the creature and its target, guns still aimed at the ugly gray face.

She was almost in position when she heard a dull thud behind her back, the sound of a body hitting the metal floor, then the clinking of chains as Loki struggled back to his feet. She now had the creature's full attention. It wasn’t the most secure or well-thought-out position to be in, she realized belatedly. Loki was just as likely to kill her as the alien. The other alien. 

“Ah, the spider came out to play,” it said, it sounded almost like singing a tune. “Such a shame that when I'm gone there will be no witness left for your pointless bravery, little mortal.”

The air rippled and glowed around its hand, forming into a ball of flickering energy. She dodged just in time to avoid the blast, it crashed against the barrier in a dazzling explosion that rocked the entire vessel. The alien lost its footing, but so did she. She stepped back, trying to regain something at least resembling a fighting stance but she felt a grip, closing around her forearm, pulling her aside. Just in time, as a second blast few just a few inches from her head and exploded, ripping another hole in the hull, and sending a shockwave through the air, strong enough to toss her away. The alien hissed in frustration and fired another blast. There was a pull at her elbow again and she fell.

Instead of the familiar sensation of hitting a hard floor she felt something different, something like crossing a surface of ice-cold water. The gravity shifted and the world around turned into brilliant streaks of colored light. Her stomach twisted and her head spun, there was no air in her lungs so she couldn't even scream and she could feel the consciousness slipping. She squeezed her eyes shut.

The hand on her arm was still there, grip strong enough to leave a bruise. Even if she could, she didn't need to look to know. Her last coherent thought, before the darkness swallowed her, was whether Loki was trying to kill her or to help her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is shorter than any of the other chapters. Do not get used to the brevity, I still dabble in overexplaining to my heart's content.


	4. Q&A

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which a very one-sided discussion is had and decisions are made.

The air was heavy, hot and humid and carried a strange smell. A scent vaguely reminiscent of ozone, greenery and decaying leaves, with metallic undertones.

She was lying on her back; the ground felt prickly but not overly uncomfortable. She tentatively opened her eyes.

Over her head extended an impressive canopy of the hugest, weirdest tree she has ever seen. Thick trunk, covered with crimson bark encrusted with violet veins, reached several hundred feet up, where it burst into a dome of twisted branches and viciously green leaves. The little bits of sky visible through were orange, as during a sunset, even if the light came straight down, painting the bark and leaves in a fiery glow wherever it landed. The world looked… rippled. Hazed, as if she were seeing it through the air rising over a patch of sun-heated asphalt, leaving her vision blurry. She blinked a few times, but the sensation didn’t go away.

Her ears felt like they were stuffed with cotton, her head pounded mercilessly with every beat of her heart and the harsh light and the oppressive, unfamiliar smell in the air sent her mind spinning.

Using the last of her strength she pulled herself up to a sitting position and bent sideways, losing a fight with a surge of nausea rising from her stomach.

It took some time before she could breathe more or less evenly again and then some more before she could properly focus her vision on her surroundings.

It was a clearing of sorts, surrounded by more of those huge trees, each trunk wider than a semitruck. The clearing looked man-made, the undergrowth was pruned in a neat circle, down to a bare ground. There were patterns, barely visible swirls and circles, burned into the soil, weathered down beyond recognition.

On the other side of the circle Loki was sitting under a tree, his back against the bark, hands resting on bent knees, face turned up, eyes half-closed.

“You...” she tried, but it came out as a weak croak. Her throat was sore and she could still taste bile in her mouth. 

It was still enough to get his attention. He gave her a questioning look.

He still had the restraints on, thank gods, heavy shackles on both wrists and ankles, each pair connected by a short length of heavy-duty chain. And the muzzle, so there would be no talking on his part for now.

It didn’t exactly stop her.

“What the actual FUCK was that?”

He looked at her for a moment, studying her face with a frown. Then he shrugged and went back to staring at the distance.

_What the hell was that supposed to mean?_

If it weren’t for how she felt like she just went through a full cycle in a ten G centrifuge or that she was fairly certain that she would collapse like a sack of wet rags if she actually tried to move more than just her head, she would pounce at him and rip out his jugular artery right then and there.

_Calm down, Natasha._

She returned to her breathing routine, breath in through the nose and out through the mouth. It seemed to help a little with the nausea too.

_There is no point in senseless acts of violence, at least until you ensure the acts of violence will not put you in a worse spot than you’re currently in._

She was not a superstitious person, but it was so very hard in situations like these. Just as she enjoyed having Loki silenced, he is the only one with answers. It’s like the universe went out of its way to prove her wrong.

_So it goes._

She could still learn a thing or two. She would just have to stick to 'yes' or 'no' questions. At least if the Space Vikings used the same body language cues, which seemed to be the case so far. She swallowed and tried again.

“So... Do you know where we are?” she asked.

Loki shrugged again.

 _I don’t know what I expected._ “Do you?” she insisted.

A head shake. _No_.

 _Peachy_. “But we are no longer on Earth.”

 _No_.

She sighed, putting pressure on the bridge of her nose. Her head felt heavy and she had trouble gathering her thoughts. At this point she wasn't sure if it was more due to fighting, drinking, or maybe _falling though a portal to an alien planet_. From the powers combined…

A sudden realization froze the blood in her veins.

“Wait, shouldn't we run? I don’t think I can fight that… thing.” Judging from his overall uselessness and panicked reaction back on the jet, it didn’t look like Loki could either.

_No._

“Can't the ugly dude follow us?” she inquired, finally deciding on a gender for the alien.

 _No_.

“You’re sure? I mean, it was his portal, wasn’t it?”

He gave her a dubious glance. He caught on to the pattern quickly and multiple consecutive questions are not easily answered with a straight 'yes' or 'no' reply. She rolled her eyes. So, he was a grammar Nazi, on top of being a regular Nazi.

“Let's try again,” she said, more to herself than to him, drawing a deep breath. “Are you sure we won't be followed?”

A nod. _That's a first_.

“But it _was_ that creature's portal?”

 _Yes_.

It made no sense. Just like a few other things.

“By the way, why are _you_ still here? You made it, you jumped ship, quite literally. Why have you not fucked off to gods know where yet?”

He raised his shackled hands as a response.

“Don't tell me you can't get those off.”

He tapped the muzzle covering his face.

“That's just brilliant! You can't take them off without your _magic!_ ” She made a point of making that last word sound like a swearword. It would be funny under any other circumstances.

 _Yes_.

“Ooooh, I get it, that's why you took me! You need me to remove it! Guess what, it's not...”

 _No_.

She stopped, confused.

“Then why?”

He just glowered at her.

“Okay, fine, let's find a better way, because that's obviously not going to cut it anymore.”

Her body felt a bit less like giving up any minute now, so she hesitantly tried standing up. It worked, even if she had to use the tree for support and swallowed a groan as her muscles protested. Judging from the dull ache that settled in her bones it will be days before she would be in a fully operational condition.

She had no cell phone, per standard of SHIELD operations and definitely no office supplies at hand, so she would have to improvise. She snapped a twig from a nearby brush, swept an area clean of the fallen leaves in the middle of the circle with her foot then extended the stick to Loki.

At least he understood the intent without her having to explain. He sucked in a deep breath and scrambled to his feet; his hands pressed to his side protectively. He took two preliminary steps to test the range of movement then hobbled towards her. The chain between his ankles restricted his stride to a slow, awkward shuffle. He reached for the stick with both hands, more collapsed than dropped to his knees in front of the cleared area then eyed her questioningly.

“Why take me?” she asked again.

He started writing. A mark after mark of something that looked _maybe_ like ancient Norse runes, but only slightly. After a moment he looked up at her.

She studied the scribble. It was completely incomprehensible of course. She looked at Loki, then at the letters on the ground and then back at Loki, to make sure he is not messing with her, but he looked serious. 

“Am I supposed to understand that?”

He frowned. And she suddenly felt utterly stupid. Why did she expect an alien fucking god of whatever to even know Latin alphabet? For all she understood he didn’t even actually speak any language she knew.

He erased the writing in a quick swipe and hesitated, the stick still in his hand. Then he started writing again. This time, it was in English. Sort of. The letters were skewed and showed an utter lack of practice but were still readable. _Hmm_.

_YOU HELPED._

“And? Are you some stray dog that I must be responsible for for the rest of my life just because I saved your sorry hide?! And how is getting pushed through a portal to space a reward?”

 _YOU WOULD DIE_.

“You don't know that.”

_I DO._

“And why do you care?”

He hesitated for a moment, then wrote:

_DON'T YOU?_

This was getting nowhere, fast.

“What about others on the jet?”

_DEAD._

She inhaled sharply. They were good, well trained agents. They had a fighting chance. Especially those in the tail section. _Especially Barton_.

He looked up at her, judging her reaction, but it wasn't a subject she wanted to discuss with Loki of all people, so she let that slide.

“You said earlier that the gray dude...”

He started scribbling.

_EBONY MAW._

“Whatever.” It sure sounded like a fitting name. “You claim that he can't follow us here. Why is that?”

_WE JUMPED PATHS_

“So you _did_ bring us here! How come you don't know where we are?”

_IT WAS RANDOM.  
WE CRASHED._

“Why?”

_THERE WAS NO TIME._

“Why?”

_IT WAS CLOSING._

That's definitely not leading anywhere either.

“But you were able to bring us here, so you can get us back to Earth, right?”

_NOT WITHOUT SPELLCASTING._

_“_ You didn't need it before.”

_NOT MY PORTAL._

He made sure to underline the word “not” a couple more times.

Natasha groaned. “So, let me get that straight. You need me to remove the muzzle, so you would be able to get us home? What warranty do I get that you won't leave me here?”

He shook his head.

“That's not an answer.”

_YOU CAN'T._

“Why?”

_IT IS CURSED._

Natasha read the answer, then read it again. Then started laughing. It was just too much.

He patiently waited out her outburst and didn't seem to find it particularly funny.

“Who can remove it?” she inquired, after calming down.

_ODIN.  
AND THOR.  
PERHAPS._

“Oh, great. I'll let you know if I meet any of them,” she snarled. “What's the plan then, we need to find whoever created this portal...”

_PATH._

“Path, fine, whatever. So, we find whoever made it first and ask him politely to open it again?”

_IT'S OLD._

“How old are we talking about? Days, weeks?”

_CENTURIES.  
MILLENIA MAYBE._

Her heart sunk.

“Yours or mine?”

_DOES IT MATTER?_

_Fair point._

She was now marching, back and forth, through the clearing, not only to get the stiffness out of her body but also to help her think. It all made so little sense and every question seemed to be a wrong turn. 

“Wait, can we go back the traditional way?” she asked after a moment of thoughtful silence. “Like, find a spaceship, if that's a thing, and fly our way home?” 

He shrugged.

“Care to elaborate?”

_I DO NOT KNOW WHERE WE ARE  
OR IF THERE ARE ANY SHIPS HERE._

“Is there a way to find out?”

_STARS._

“What about them?”

It was his turn for an eyeroll.

_I MIGHT RECOGNIZE THEM._

Natasha didn't like the odds of 'might', but it was still better than nothing. The problem was, there weren’t any stars visible. Of course, it was daytime, but even during the night (if that was a thing on this planet, she reminded herself she can't take such things for granted) with the dense canopy of trees any sort of star charting would border impossible.

“It means we need to get to a more open area and wait for the night.”

 _Yes_.

 _Fuck_.

**\--**

She was pacing again.

They had to move, she knew, but it was easier said than done. Loki might have his superhuman constitution and alien strength but him going anywhere, restrained as he was, would be nearly impossible; the chain connecting his ankles was maybe ten inches long, heavy and designed with a sole purpose of preventing exactly that.

And, even without the context of Loki’s actions in the last couple of days and how he certainly didn’t deserve anything better, removing the shackles meant that Natasha would lose the last bit of control over the situation. If she was able to remove them at all - because even that wasn’t certain, it’s not like anyone on board had a key – all her limited usefulness was gone. He could kill her, or ditch her, which basically meant the same thing in the end.

He seemed surprisingly cooperative thus far but hell, it might all be bullshit, he might be playing her since the very start and all the answers he so willingly volunteered were just old, plain lies. Maybe it’s all magic and mind tricks and they are actually in a forest in Wisconsin and not on some alien planet. Plus, the fact that she was the best qualified person on the Quinjet for relieving Loki of the burden of his bonds and he just _happened_ to pick her for his little ride though the portal didn’t quite lessen her suspicions. 

The communication bud in her ear was silent and the indicator LED blinked “no connection” continuously once she pulled it off, so there was that. That virtually never happened, not even when a mission took her to one underground bunker or another. But it might be an effect of a scrambling device. Or, again, magic, because who knows?

He didn’t have his glowstick, that at least she was sure about. She was the last one to hold it before it was taken away by SHIELD’s technicians after the battle. But Loki was able to fool Thor (if not the cameras) without it back on the Helicarrier, so it wasn’t necessary for every magic trick he had up his sleeve, even if he wasn’t able to directly control her mind.

Or maybe he _was_ telling the truth, he really couldn’t access his powers with the muzzle on and they were indeed stuck on some alien planet because she foolishly decided to step up and defend an alien invader here from some other ugly alien motherfucker with a grudge?

She wasn’t sure which she would rather to be true.

But it sure did _feel_ real.

Not being able to tell truth from lies was an unfamiliar, extremely unpleasant feeling. Getting confessions out of people has been her forte for as long as she could remember, she knew how to assess person’s character and knew which buttons to press and all the years of precise training only expanded her repertoire. But with Loki, in this situation, she was so out of her depth. Even on the Helicarrier she just played the cards he dealt her and used his own hubris against him, but now? As much as he looked like one, he wasn’t human, she couldn’t judge his reactions through the lens of human psychology and she had no idea about his personality, other than the “delusional murdering maniac” part or if there even _was_ any. There was no angle, no foundation to work up from and the time was not on her side. Usually, in situations like these there were always threats of violence – or actual violence - as the last resort, but she highly doubted she would be able to punch him hard enough to inspire any sort of honesty, even if she tried.

Her shock wristbands would most likely just piss off someone who had a literal god of thunder for a brother.

Funny, how her high moral standards she was so quick to apply to what SHIELD was doing suddenly stopped mattering altogether once her life was on the line. 

She could still shoot him, probably, but she didn’t feel comfortable with the idea of trying the “Beretta at close range” theory on her – so far – only potential way out either, even if the bastard deserved to be placed in front of a firing squad for what he did, no two questions about it.

The forest was unnaturally quiet, she noticed. Other than the slight rustle of wind up above there was no other sounds, no birds, no insects buzzing, no animals howling. She couldn’t decide if that’s a good or a bad thing.

It was still hot, maybe even hotter than it was when she woke up, she could feel sweat running down her spine and plastering her hair to her skull. Her dark, skintight uniform wasn’t even barely suitable for this environment. She ran her hand through her hair.

She needed to do something, anything, she was already thirsty, and, in this climate, it won’t be long before she would start getting delirious from dehydration.

Maybe it was _her_ who should just leave him behind? He wouldn’t be able to follow right away if she was quick enough and she might be able to find her way to some sort of civilization – if any existed on the planet, but hey, someone travelled here before so that wasn’t out of the question – on her own, without the fear of Loki backstabbing her on the first opportunity he gets.

He would probably be able figure out how to free himself in the end, and if not, well, no big loss, really. It’s not like it’s her fault he was in this position in the first place and…

No. Just following that line of thought made her uneasy. Not only because the perspective of being all alone on an alien world terrified her and she would have no idea what to look for, but also, no matter what she said earlier, she did feel responsible. It was her job, as an agent, to oversee the prisoner’s transport from one place to another and abandoning him in the middle of a forest all chained up didn’t exactly qualify as a job well done.

She suspected he traced her frantic pacing but, when she looked down, he still had the stick in his hands and was back to scribbling in the dirt. The letters were barely visible, overlaying the previous parts of their conversation. She came closer to read them properly.

_I HAVE NO REASON TO BETRAY YOU._

She cursed under her breath. He saw all the way through her internal struggles. She was too tired for this shit and let him read her like an inexperienced child.

“Oh yeah?” she snapped, recovering quickly. She had to be more mindful from now on. “And you expect me to take your word for it?”

He raised his head, looked her in the eye and nodded with a solemn expression. It should look out of place on his face but somehow it didn’t.

She laughed, a short, humorless cackle. “Do you really need me to compile the list of reasons why I don’t trust your promises, just from the last two days’ worth of evidence?” she mocked, “Or are you going to come up with something better?”

He shrugged and let the stick fall from his hands.

Natasha wasn’t sure how to interpret that. Was he admitting he lost an argument so quickly? Or did he just give up, allowing her to make her own mind?

Manipulation was of course still not out of the picture either.

She groaned in frustration _._ She couldn’t leave him and if she stayed, she would die. Loki might be able to go without hydration and sustenance, but she couldn’t, not for long.

 _Fine_.

She reached for the small set of precision tools, that was, unlike office supplies, a part of her standard equipment and sat down on the ground across from Loki.

“Show me your ankles,” she said.

He understood instantly, shifting to a sitting position.

SHIELD took away his boots along with his armor, they were too good of a hiding place for concealed weapons. He has been given some flimsy slippers instead that Natasha suspected would prove insufficient when traversing a _fucking alien forest_. She couldn’t exactly bring herself to be concerned. He could walk barefoot for all she cared.

Working on the locks was stressful, not only because they weren’t all that easy to open. She tried to ignore how he traced her every move or how his skin was bruised beneath the shackles. How hard he had to struggle to get marks like these?

Or how close he was, way too close for comfort. Loki might look scrawny compared to Thor (who didn’t, honestly), but Natasha took snapping her neck in one swift motion as a bare bottom line for his abilities, even in his current sorry state.

At least those were standard, keyed locks, R&D stopped with the fancy, magnetic ones when it became clear that they are too easy to mess with, either via remote hacking or even the old-fashioned electromagnetic pulse.

It turns out they should’ve invested in _curses_.

It didn’t mean the locks were less secure. The mechanism was entirely hidden, only with a small round hole for a key of an unknown shape, one of those that are made to be nearly tamper-proof. She wasn’t sure yet what design it used and she needed to make sure her manipulation won’t damage the lock beyond repair. If that happened, there would be no removing the shackles without power tools.

Loki stayed silent and motionless, even as she twisted and turned the manacle to find the best angle, which couldn’t be comfortable and she wasn’t particularly gentle. Either it wasn’t enough to hurt him or he was just really good at the whole “suffering in silence” thingy, and, whichever it was, it worked equally well for Natasha.

There was a screech of metal scraping against metal and a pop of something breaking and she let out a colorful curse in Russian. She slowly removed the pick and sighed in relief; it was only the tool that snapped in half. Loki also let out a long breath through his nose.

So he knew precisely what the stakes were and still decided to play along. _Hmmm_.

“You know,” she said. The silence wasn’t doing anything good for her nerves. “If you were this cooperative from the start, we wouldn’t be here in the first place.”

He huffed out something that could’ve been a laugh. 

“Oh yes, it’s just sooo funny,” she spat as she reached for a different pick, “Coming to my world, murdering people I care about and raining fucking space whales and an alien swarm on my city. Hilarious.”

She clutched her fingers on the tool with so much force she felt it bending under the pressure. She squeezed her eyes shut and took a couple of deep breaths. She needed to focus, to calm down, it wasn’t the right place or the right time to let Loki trigger her with nonverbal cues. Silence wasn’t that bad after all.

She continued to work without a word until she finally released the latch and the shackle snapped open.


	5. Into the wild

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which progress is being made. Some discoveries, too, of different flavours.

Natasha’s sense of the passage of time was screwed big time thanks to the unfamiliarity of the place, but it must’ve been a good couple of hours later by the time she was done with the second lock, even if it was a bit easier, once she knew how it was supposed to open. The air turned from almost unbearable to only uncomfortably hot to and the sky color shifted from bright orange to deep red, bathing everything in an eerie glow.

Loki raised his hands after she was done with freeing his ankles, but she shook her head.

“No,” she said, “we need to get moving.”

Leaving Loki’s hands chained meant that he might want to stick around until she agrees to free him. He might try to coerce her – a valiant yet futile effort against an ex-KGB spy – or convince her he could be trusted with his freedom. Good luck with that. 

But, most of all, it did wonders for satisfying a personal spite. Plus her throat was dry, she was hungry, her head was swimming from exhaustion and she didn’t look forward to more hours of focused handywork in a spotty light. He could walk now, and she couldn’t care less about his comfort beyond that.

He glowered at her but got up and brushed dust off his clothes all the same. He picked up the shackles she left lying in the dirt, weighted them a moment then tossed them, far, into the undergrowth in one mean swing.

“Hey, I wanted to use those again!” she protested weakly. She was aware that, once removed, she had no way of forcing the restraints back on Loki, but she didn’t like the establishment of dominance he tried to get going anyway.

He gave her a middle finger. No way this was a gesture known in Asgard and she considered asking where he picked it up. But there was no nefarious intent behind the motion that she could identify and, even if they had a communication method, it was arduous, they needed to start moving and it wasn’t important, so she filed it for later.

She collected her tools and checked the holstered guns, mostly out of habit. She stood up in the middle of the circle and looked around, hands on her hips, then pulled out a small compass from her utility belt. The needle spun around, slowly but steadily, without stabilizing on any direction. _That’s interesting_. She put it back in its pocket.

The clearing was surrounded by those huge, majestic, alien trees as far as she could see in any direction, with thick underbrush of some fern-like bushes with leaves of unfamiliar shapes and smaller trees growing in between. There was no visible path or anything that might’ve suggested which way to follow.

“Any recommendations?” she asked, as no clear objective presented itself.

She hated giving the incentive away so willingly, but, as much as she hated to admit, she had no idea where to go. Alien forest (more of a jungle, once she had a better look) notwithstanding, she was never a wilderness person. She could track and camouflage and knew that they needed to find water, food, and shelter sometime soon, but she never had to navigate the nature without having the slightest idea where she was. Sure, she had a mission or two gone sideways that ended up with her stranded somewhere away from civilization, but she always had a GPS tracker, a map or at least a compass that actually worked and a decent idea which direction to follow to the nearest settlement.

Here? There was nothing. She couldn’t even tell the direction the sun travelled, not with the thick canopy above their heads obscuring the view of the sky.

 _A_ sun, she reminded herself.

Loki picked up the stick again.

 _WATER_ , he wrote.

It seemed like he had similar ideas. Thor did mention something about going on hunts and even boasted about one trophy or another he got from some beast, so maybe it was common for an Asgardian to know their way about nature?

“Do you know how to find it?” she asked, “Hell, how do you even know there’s any?”

He raised an eyebrow and gestured around.

 _Good point_. With that humidity and amount of vegetation it was a logical assumption that there ought to be water _somewhere_. Whether it would be safe for human consumption was another issue, but she didn’t bother asking about that. He most likely wouldn’t know for sure and knowing the odds probably wouldn’t improve her mood.

It still didn’t answer the original question.

“So, do you know where we should go, or should we just pick a direction at random and hope for the best?”

Loki looked around, his eyes narrowed, then he pointed towards the gap between the two biggest trees. She couldn’t tell whether that was a wild guess or if there was any reasoning behind that specific route.

It didn’t matter.

“You first,” she said. He didn’t argue, just took a final look at the clearing, turned around swiftly, jumped over a fallen tree trunk and disappeared in the undergrowth. She sighed and followed.

\---

Traversing the jungle has proven a tedious task.

Every few steps there was a boulder or a dense shrubbery they had to circle around or a low hanging branch to duck under or trunks covered with thin, sharp leaves that slashed at their faces that they had to squeeze between.

She finally understood why every adventure movie has characters madly swinging machetes at plants, constantly having to avoid branches and vines swaying at you really brings forth murderous thoughts. 

The woods were still eerily silent. She wondered how an ecosystem can even function with only flora and seemingly no fauna, but it looked like life indeed found a way. And honestly, she preferred that to the alternative of having to deal with alien mosquitoes or mutant bees trying to lay eggs in her ears or whatever other nightmare fuel alien planets could possibly produce. 

The trees went on and on. It must’ve been at least another two or three hours of walking before any change of scenery occurred. It was minimal but still showed that there’s at least a bit of variation to the planet’s landscapes. They were now walking down a gentle slope and not on a flat ground and the domes of the trees – that slightly reminded her of acacias if those grew to be a couple hundred feet tall – got a bit thinner and further between, revealing more of the alien sky.

It wasn’t completely dark yet, if it was Earth, the sky color would suggest they’d have about an hour of daylight left. Here, she couldn’t be sure. The day seemed way longer, but that might be just her skewed perception speaking. She regretted not having a watch, but she never wore one with her shock wristbands equipped, an electric discharge would fry it anyway. And it’s not like it mattered all that much.

More light getting through the branches above meant even denser undergrowth though and soon they were stopped by a seemingly unpassable thicket of something that looked a bit like red bamboo stalks, each as thick as her arm and good thirty feet tall, twisting vines with thorns and spiky leaves interwoven between them. It sprawled to left and right as far as she could see, so there was no obvious way to walk around it.

She sat down on a mossy rock, to give her legs a momentary respite. Loki leaned against a tree a few steps away, panting slightly.

He looked pale, well, _paler_ , and there were beads of sweat on his forehead.

Natasha raised an eyebrow. Being a super strong alien and all, a small walk shouldn’t tire him out, right? She could feel deep weariness creeping down her spine and settling in her limbs, but she wasn’t an indestructible superhuman and that was to be expected. But him?

“Should we stop and rest for a while?” she asked.

He slowly shook his head.

“You sure?”

_Yes._

“Fine then,” she said and got up, trying to ignore how her muscles protested. She pulled out her knife.

Loki moved and reached out to take it. She stepped away and hid the blade behind her back.

“Yeah, no, I don’t think so,” she muttered as she stepped around him, ignoring his perplexed gaze. Maybe there was nothing malicious about the gesture – he was leading the way until now, he was stronger and it would be easier for him to cut their way through the thicket - but there was no chance in hell she was willingly placing a weapon in his hands, ever.

The knife was a familiar, well balanced weight in her grip and as sharp as regular steel can get but it still took a lot effort to carve her way through. The progress was painfully slow, the thorny brushes left scratches on exposed skin and caught on her clothes and the stalks grew awfully close to each other. Soon she was more feeling her way through than seeing it. She also realized that Loki was unexpectedly light on his feet and could move almost silently. She didn’t pay attention before, because she could keep an eye on him but now only an occasional clink of chain served as a confirmation that he was still behind.

“Uncomfortable” didn’t even begin to cover the situation.

It wouldn’t be a rational move for him to murder her now, she knew, she still had skills to offer and she wasn’t slowing them down. But “rational” wasn’t anywhere on the list of adjectives she would use to describe Loki’s actions, both back in New York and more so now, with this sudden and unexplainable change of attitude. She mentally braced for an attack and possible scenarios ran through her head, uninvited. It wasn’t that bad, she thought. She was armed and Loki was restrained. The cramped surroundings worked in her favor too, as he wouldn’t be able to use the extent of his strength. She had a decent fighting chance. Would he try to strangle her with the chain (that’s what she would do if she were in his place) or would he go for a more direct attack? When he lounges at her, would a shock from the wristbands incapacitate him for long enough for her to get on top? How long can he fight when she tries to choke him? Should she try to reach for her guns? That would be too risky against a man who knew how to react to a gun being pulled out in close quarters combat but maybe Loki wasn’t used to projectile weapons? No, his army used energy riffles, so that’s at least something he was aware of. She just needed to keep her guns out of his reach.

The thicket thinned off, the light penetrated more generously between the stalks and she could catch glimpses of a more open area just a dozen or so feet ahead. The light of the day faded some more in the time they were wading through the brushes and its tint changed to a slightly less outlandish, blue-tinted purple, but it still wasn’t dark. If there was a regular day and night cycle here it was definitely not timed even vaguely similar to Earth’s one.

Soon she cut through the last of the brambles and she squeezed between two stalks to step out of the tangle. The attack still didn’t come.

The breath of relief stuck in her throat and turned into a yelp as her boot slipped on a jagged stone. She tried to balance herself, but there was nothing to balance _on_ , there was no ground, only air beneath her feet. She instinctively grasped for support and – at the last possible moment – she held onto an overhanging root. It broke her fall and she had to swallow a moan as her shoulder joint screamed in pain.

She waited a second or two for it to subside before she tried pulling herself up, to no avail. Her palm was sweaty and the root was moist and slippery and she could feel it thinning under her fingers as she slid down, the situation only made worse when she tried to move.

Her other hand was still clutched on the knife. She tried sticking it into the cliff’s face for support, but it just grazed the solid rock, sending a few pebbles down the ravine. She tossed the blade away, it tumbled down and disappeared in the thickening darkness below.

She tried grabbing onto something, but other roots and branches were out of her reach and the rock face was smooth, providing no possible support.

She could feel the ending of the root sliding past her palm.

The utter irony of the fact that, with all the things – and people – she anticipated to try to kill her just in the last couple of days, she is going to die falling off a cliff like a complete moron didn’t fail to register. 

A strong grip closed on her wrist. She looked up. Loki was dangling off the edge from his chest up, with a look of stern disapproval on his face. Because of course, she totally planned for this to happen.

He was laying on his stomach, both hands clasped around her wrist. He must’ve dived after her the moment he noticed her falling because the whole struggle couldn’t take more than a couple of seconds. She wished he could hold onto something to steady himself so he didn’t need to rely solely on gravity when both their lives depended on him being able to stay on the ledge, but with his hands chained like that it was either grabbing her or holding onto something, not both.

Was the universe really going to punish her for all the vicious thoughts today or just the ones pertaining to Loki?

 _If you want to get rid of me this is your moment_ , she though.

He hauled her up instead. Despite the tropical climate his hands were cold as ice.

His position didn’t allow to pull her all the way up, but even that few extra inches were enough for her to grab back into one of the low hanging branches. With that, and some traction her feet were finally able to get on the side of the cliff, she heaved herself further up. He let go of her and crawled away from the edge, making room on the narrow shelf between the wall of the forest and the brink of the precipice for her to prop herself onto.

She sat there, panting heavily, her feet swaying over the void, her mind and body still high on adrenaline, her heart racing. Now she could see the reason for her – almost deadly – misstep. The other side of the ravine was twenty feet away but also a good ten feet lower than theirs and just as overgrown, which made the chasm completely invisible from just a few steps away.

She looked over the edge, but she couldn’t make out the bottom of the crevice, the opposite face disappeared in the veil of darkness maybe forty feet below the edge. Was it actually deep enough for the drop to kill her? Or would she just lie there, her body broken and useless, waiting for help that would never come until she succumbed to her wounds or died from dehydration or exposure? 

Either way, it looked like Loki saved her for some reason. A second time that day, if his claims about what exactly transpired on the Quinjet were to be trusted and at this point she was considering granting him the benefit of the doubt about that one, at least for the time being. She turned around to face him.

He was standing in the shade of the carved pathway, a few steps behind, leaning on one of the bigger stalks, arms crossed at his chest as far as the chain would allow (which wasn’t very far), staring off into the distance with an unreadable expression, one of those that never meant anything good. 

“Hey,” she wheezed, still out of breath. For a moment she thought he didn’t hear her, but then his eyes focused. “Thanks.”

If the world were back to being sane, if all the proper rules were working again, he would have snarled or scoffed at her. Maybe flash one of those nasty smiles, even if she wouldn’t be able to see it behind the muzzle, just to keep her guessing. But it wasn’t and they weren’t, so he just gave her a slight nod of acknowledgement and looked away again.

**\--**

She knew she had to come up with a new strategy. Figure out whether they should go back and find another way or try to cross the chasm and go forward. Stand up and move. But she was drained, both mentally and physically, not entirely sure whether she would be able to hold herself upright and, if she did, if she wouldn’t just stumble blindly into another deadly trap right away. She felt lightheaded. It was like that since they landed, she realized, in a sudden moment of clarity granted by the adrenaline.

Was it because of something in the air? Or the air itself? Higher oxygen levels could do that to a person, and it would be too much to ask of the atmosphere on an alien world to be an exact match to her home, right? It was nothing short of a miracle that she could breathe at all. From all the laughably limited knowledge the mankind had about the universe, planets having breathable air were pretty damn rare. They knew about one until, well, today. Maybe two, if Asgard counted, but she couldn’t say, as all the technical questions Stark tried to ask before he got too drunk to put words into sentences that made sense were handwaved by Thor. And all the answers Thor did provide were about as useful as nipples on a man. Magic, because, what else?

She heard a rustle behind and looked up. Loki gestured at the bit of empty space beside her. She scooted over to the side and he moved to sit down on the ledge, which turned out to be quite a feat to perform without risking tumbling down a ravine if one’s hands were bound. He somehow managed both doing it safely and looking dignified in the process. She felt a pang of guilt, but she squashed it.

He was sitting so close their shoulders almost touched for there was not much space on the ledge. She wasn’t bothered as much as she should have been, not sure if she should put her newfound tolerance for world conquering maniacs dangling their bare feet off the edge of a cliff just inches away from her on the curb of a recent near-death experience, her fatigue or just the fact that it looked like Loki was not actively trying to kill her right now. At least in his current emotional state, which was subject to change any moment for all she knew.

She was going to take what she could get.

She examined the ravine again. In theory, she should be able to jump over it, especially with the other side being lower, but there was neither space for a run-up nor a convenient place to land on, dense foliage starting right from the edge or overhanging it in some places. 

How such a peculiar landform feature could come into existence anyway? Some sort of a seismic fault? It had to be, it was too abrupt, and the edges were too sharp to be an effect of erosion. The geological stratums visible on the face would be enough to get any geology enthusiast foaming at the mouth; they went from dark gray to teal to different shades of red and orange in a rapid succession and she couldn’t even begin to guess what they were made of.

Whatever it was, the walls were smooth and – without proper gear she obviously didn’t have in her possession – there was no way of climbing them down, even if the prospect of exploring the bottom of a seemingly bottomless pit wasn’t enough of a deterrent. They needed a different way.

At least the crevice created a bit of an open area and she could finally assess more than just a few feet in front of her face. The gash cut the land at a mild angle, terrain declined slightly on their right and went up in the opposite direction. The strip of the sky visible above was painted with a gradient going from mauve to pale indigo. Still no stars though.

Should they go uphill, towards the darkening sky? Or follow the slope down? It didn’t matter, did it? They needed to find their way back through the bamboo thicket first, she will figure out the rest on the fly.

“We should go,” she said and started to rise, “before it’s…”

Loki’s hand on her forearm stopped her. She shook it off but stayed put.

He picked a small pebble and threw it into the ravine. She followed its trajectory until it disappeared into the darkness below.

“Yeah, gravity. Who would have thought?” she snapped. “You have a point? I’m in no mood for stupid games.”

He rolled his eyes, sighed, and found another stone, a bit bigger this time, in a size of a fist. He placed his index finger against the muzzle, where his mouth would be – another one of those gestures Natasha would deem an exclusively human social convention – before throwing it into the chasm.

_Is he checking how deep it is?_

The stone vanished into the dark void. For a split-second Natasha wondered if it’s really bottomless but then they heard… a splash?

Loki looked very pleased with himself. _Smug bastard._

She found another rock and threw it, a few feet to the right and, surely enough, there was another splash. A couple feet to the left – same. It wasn’t just a puddle, more so, the low murmur at the edge of her hearing range she earlier dismissed as rustling leaves without much thought _might_ be the sound of flowing water.

How did she miss that before? Oh yeah, she was dangling over the edge, trying not to die, that might have done it.

“We would need at least a rope if we wanted to get down there,” she pointed out, “and some light, it looks awfully dark.”

She had a small flashlight with her, one of those you could attach to a barrel of a gun, but she intended to save it for now. It wasn’t all that useful in complete darkness anyway, the cone of light it created was narrow, intended for finding targets without drawing much attention to the gun wielder, not for illuminating one’s way. Plus the batteries would last for an hour, tops, and she had no way to recharge them. If only she had one of those fancy-pants reactors, like the one that Stark had in his chest, that could power entire city blocks for days... She wasn’t much of a fan of having one’s sternum cut open, but other than that, it would be a damn nice thing to have right about now. 

Loki shook his head; his hands drew a wave symbol in the air then he pointed down the slope.

She chuckled. Were they really forced to play charades until they got back to Earth?

He had a point though. As much as she yearned to get to the water _immediately_ , it was way more sensible to follow the subterranean creek downstream and find an outlet. It might mean miles of walking, but it still beat the alternative of falling to her death climbing down a smooth rock face without even knowing how tall it is or getting lost in some cave system trying to find an exit in complete darkness if she somehow succeeded at reaching the bottom.

She of course had no way to tell if the underground river’s bed followed the slope of the terrain above but that was a good working hypothesis.

“All right then,” she said and got up. The thought of finally making any kind of progress put some sorely needed spring back to her step. With the corner of her eye she saw Loki rising to follow. “We go back the way we came and…”

She made maybe two steps into the thicket before she felt his hand on her forearm again. She swerved, enraged.

“Stop touching me!” she fumed. “Put your hand on me again when I’m not in danger and I’ll rip your spleen out through your fucking throat.”

His eyes went wide with surprise, then he took half a step back and put his hands up in a sign of placation. Her anger immediately fizzled out. What else could he do to get her attention? Throw a rock at her? Yeah, like that would work any better.

She rubbed her face in exasperation. “What do you want?”

He went back toward the edge and pointed at something to the right. She stepped closer and aligned her eyes with his arm, to be able to see exactly what he was trying to show her. It still took a bit of squinting to figure out what he meant.

Off in the distance, at least a good mile away, the ravine’s edge suddenly cut off, disappearing behind a line of green. It was hard to tell whether it chamfered down, ended there or just bent and continued in a different direction, out of sight.

_Fuck._

If it ended there, it meant they’d have to go through the thicket again at a lower point, which would be – more likely than not – for naught anyway, there was no way the canyon was shallow enough so close. And she no longer had her knife, which made it even more problematic. There was a smaller blade still hidden in her boot, but it would be laughably insufficient for the task. Also, there was no telling if walking along the line of the bamboo woodlot won’t take them away from the gorge. And if the ravine didn’t end and just turned to a different direction finding it again would be even harder. Of course, they might be lucky and stumble upon it again somewhere down the hill or maybe even find a different source of water elsewhere, but Natasha was never big on relying on luck. And she couldn’t afford much backtracking. 

“I assume you have an idea.”

He nodded. She stifled a sigh of relief.

He stepped even closer to the crevice, grabbed one of the trunks and swung around it, placing his feet on the narrow stone shelf, his back towards the ravine. Then he started moving, step by step, along the edge, switching his grip from stalk to stalk.

“Wait, seriously?” she called after him. “This is insane!”

He just shrugged without even looking back and carried on.

Natasha watched him go, perplexed. At the outlet of their little path the shelf was maybe fifteen inches wide, which, by itself, was too little for comfort, and she could clearly see it taper further down in the distance or even completely disappear at points, with the outermost stalks growing at an angle over the ravine. The edge was uneven, the stones sharp and – as she had a questionable pleasure to experience first-hand – slippery, and Loki wasn’t even wearing shoes anymore. Not to mention that with his hands bound his range of motion was greatly impaired, he had to swing his body to gain enough momentum to be able to let go of one stalk and grab onto another before gravity took a hold of him. It was just a matter of time before he lost his balance and went down.

 _That does it_ , she though, _he_ is _mad_. Then she chortled. _Was there ever a question about it?_

So far, he was making a good progress though. The efficiency with which he worked around the limitations imposed by the chain was slightly unnerving. It wasn’t about the sheer strength or agility – those she already noticed before – it was rather how coordinated he was, how consistently he was able to synchronize his movements to cope with the restraint. It was like…

 _“Like he is used to it_ ,” a small voice at the back of her head supplied.

She stashed the thought for later, not sure what to make of it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The "falling off the cliff like a moron" part was there originally and I had a chuckle at it, so I left it as-is, so you can have one too.


	6. Flow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which gravity plays a part again and Natasha is given another few positions to add to the list of things to not think about.

She followed Loki in the end. Splitting up was a concept not even worth exploring and she wouldn’t peg him as the one to bow to her wishes and turn back if she decided to stand her ground and stay behind. She also didn’t want to be too far away if he did slip and required assistance. She would be just returning the favor.

It wasn’t as hard as he made it look either when one had full control of their arms. Still scary, given the outcome of a single mistake, but doable.

After a couple hundred yards the shelf has widened enough for them to be able to walk single file. She stopped, bent forward, and rested her hands on her thighs, trying to catch her breath. When she recovered and straightened up, Loki was staring a hole through her.

“What?”

He put a cupped hand to his ear.

Indeed, she could hear it as well, the mumble of flowing water grew louder. She peeked over the edge and yeah, they were right, it didn’t extend as far down here and she could see a thin line of the stream gleaming with reflected light at the bottom. The chasm also broadened a bit. It was still way too deep to reach the lowest point safely though.

“At least we know we’re going in the right direction,” she noted.

He gave her a curt nod and headed on.

\---

They reached the bend – as it turned out it was a bend after all – quite fast, all things considered. At that point, the banks were wide enough for two people to walk comfortably next to each other.

She didn’t even register at first that she started humming under her breath. It was not that she was in that good of a mood, although the perspective of finding water and maybe finally being able to rest for a while put a second wind into her sails. No, it was one of the songs they used to sing during military training, back when she was a kid, to help them keep an even pace. She couldn’t even remember the words anymore, only that there was something about war, courage and conquest, but the melody still stuck with her.

Loki eyed her curiously.

“Don’t you have marching songs in Asgard?” she asked.

He nodded.

“Are they all written in iambic pentameter like your party songs?”

He gave her a noncommittal grunt, followed by a cringe. She wasn’t sure if that meant he disagreed with her assessment of the quality of Asgardian music or if he was just voicing disregard for literary terminology. It wasn’t important anyway.

She returned to humming. After a while Loki matched his stride to the melody as well, consciously or not, so she turned it up a notch.

\---

It was slowly getting there, but it was still not too dark to see, even if it must’ve been good twenty something hours since they arrived. She could stay awake for longer than that, she already did, as it was well into the afternoon on Earth when she was thrown – or rather pulled – into the portal. Going without sleep for multiple days was another thing growing up in the Red Room had taught her, but she could still feel her biological rhythm protesting at the disruption.

The bamboo thickets that were growing thinner and thinner for a while, now disappeared completely, replaced with trees on both sides of the ravine. The trees were similar to those huge ones before, but not as tall or sprawling, so they were either younger or of a different species. The land sloped more sharply here, and the stream was tantalizingly close, maybe twenty feet below them. She considered just jumping in, she could comfortably make it down without as much as risking a scratched knee, but the sides were just as vertical and just as smooth as before, so it was climbing out that would pose the challenge. They would probably be able to create a makeshift ladder if they found a fallen tree or a thick enough branch and dragged it over to the river, but that meant wasting precious time and it looked like they were close. She could tell, just from the look on Loki’s face, that he was thinking the same thoughts, which was kind of weird, considering she saw him pulling off some insane leaps earlier during the battle and she would assume he could clear that height if he tried. Maybe he was tired and didn’t want to risk it. Or maybe he didn’t want to show off all the cards he had up his sleeve, to lull her into a false sense of security.

Fat chance of that.

The slope ended, the lines of trees on both sides parted and the land opened into a plateau, mostly devoid of trees apart from a couple of clumps here and there, with a thick blanket of wide-bladed grass and shrubbery with fleshy leaves as big as her hand. The glade extended until it hit the wall of the forest a good half a mile away to their left, even further than that to the right and until the foot of a hill in front of them. The hill was steep and taller than the surrounding trees, high enough to completely obscure the view of what lay behind. It continued in a more or less straight line, in both directions, behind the lines of the forest as well.

The ravine cut into it, leaving two jagged halves in its path. It looked like the hill was a single, gigantic piece of rock that was cracked in half with a chisel and then left just lying there. Hell, maybe it was.

From their vantage point they couldn’t see through the crack to the other side or even if it really reached all the way through, the fissure was narrow and ran at an angle.

The distance to the bottom of the ravine, if one could call it that at this point, was down to ten feet, tops. The floor of the canyon was relatively flat, twice as wide as it was deep and covered with cobbles, polished smooth by moving water. The stream ran through it neatly in the middle, its flow slow but steady, more than a trickle but too shallow and not wide enough to deserve being called a river. The water was crystal clear, transparent to the point it seemed to completely disappear when viewed at certain angles, like one could sometimes see in photos from places on Earth not yet touched by human activity.

There were patches of grass and moss growing between the rocks and a lonely tree, a bit further in the distance, standing close to the opposite wall, that somehow found its way and took root down there. It was young and thin, but still reached well over the edge and would be a good enough starting point if she needed a way out of the hole.

She eyed Loki, he noticed that too, because he just nodded and proceeded to jump in. She winced as she watched him land on the stones. It would be quite infuriating if he hurt himself now and it prevented them from going on.

She surveyed the stream bed for a moment looking for potential obstacles, then, satisfied with the outcome, jumped down. She landed on all fours and rolled, burning up the extra kinetic energy. 

Thirst was on the foreground of her thoughts for the better part of the day, but it flared up even brighter right now. She crouched at the edge of the stream and scooped some water with her hand. It was cool, but not frigid like she would expect a fresh spring water to be. She sniffed at it and, when that proved inconclusive, she took an experimental sip.

Maybe it was just the dehydration speaking, but it tasted like the best water she had in years. It had a slight limey tang to it, but it didn’t raise any alarms in her body that might’ve suggested it’s not suitable for drinking.

Off to the side, Loki just waded into the stream, fell to his knees, and plucked his head into the water. She hasn’t thought about it before, but would he even be able to drink with the muzzle on?

Oh well, she would find out soon enough.

She considered following Loki’s example but decided against, she didn’t want to get her uniform wet. She brought another scoop of water to her mouth. Then another. Then another.

Loki’s head stayed underwater. Was he trying to off himself or what? Or was he just showing off how long he can hold his breath?

 _Fucking space aliens_.

She drank some more then splashed water on her face. Just as she started to contemplate if she should intervene, Loki pulled his head out of the stream. He blinked a few times, wiped his face with his hands then ran fingers through his hair in one smooth motion.

He moved to stand up, but his foot slipped on a wet rock and he collapsed, back to his knees. He stayed like that, hands and legs in the water, head down.

“Maybe you shouldn’t try drowning yourself next time,” she quipped.

He straightened up with a visible effort, sat down on his haunches and stared down at his hands; his shoulders slumped. He looked… spent, like there was not an ounce of energy left in him.

When was the last time he slept?

She knew he didn’t sleep at all during his stay on the Helicarrier (she planned on using that to her advantage) and the security footage Blobfish made them watch on fast forward till the end showed Loki either staring a hole through the ceiling of his cell or pacing frantically. So, unless he took a nap in the middle of the battle, it meant he was up on his feet for, what, three days straight? With an exertion (not to mention being smashed into the floor by Hulk) on top, it should be more than enough to tire out any man. Would it be that much different for someone who wasn’t human? Thor did sleep, and soundly so. Stark had to use his AI playing La Marseillaise on max volume to wake him up in the morning, so it wasn’t like Asgardians didn’t need to rest at all.

So okay, he was tired, it’s not like she didn’t know already. She was tired too. It’s not something that couldn’t be fixed with some beauty sleep.

Loki turned his head up.

There was a thin trail of blood running from his chin, down the side of his neck and disappearing under the collar of his shirt, bright red standing out against pale skin. For a second, she took it for a nosebleed, but no, it was clearly coming from between the metal plates encasing his jaw. She suspected it couldn’t be comfortable, but was it actually hurting him?

She had no time – or interest – to inspect the muzzle before Thor slapped it onto Loki’s face, she just concluded it was meant as a restraint and spared it no further thought. Those were not usually designed to cause unnecessary harm. Was it not meant to stay on for so long? Or did it double as a torture device? Then why would Thor use it without any concern when the rest of his actions clearly showed he still cared about his brother, at least to an extent, for reasons Natasha couldn’t begin to phantom?

Maybe he didn’t know.

She sighed. It wasn’t her place to judge the ethicality of alien customs she knew nothing about. Loki deserved to be punished for all the deaths and destruction he caused, that was non-negotiable. If that’s the way it is done where he’s from, then how could she question it? Besides, SHIELD’s (or other federal agencies’ for that matter) track record on detainees’ handling was never exactly pristine and she still worked for them. She went on with a plan that couldn’t result in anything but torture, without even voicing her concerns to anyone but Clint. She apparently wasn’t too attached to her moral code.

Why did it feel wrong then?

She rubbed her eyes and stood up. The sooner they found a way to leave this damned world, the sooner she could return to not having to think about what happens to Loki.

“You’re all right?” she asked.

He blinked and nodded but didn’t move. She kicked a pebble, it bounced off the wall and fell into the stream with a splash. 

“Come on, let’s check the other side of the hill, maybe we can find some better place to rest for the night,” she said, stepping into the water and offering a hand to Loki. “These rocks look too uncomfortable for a bed.”

He hesitated and glared at her with open suspicion. She let out an exasperated sigh but didn’t take the hand away. After a moment he grabbed it and pulled himself up.

**\--**

They followed the stream, not bothering with scaling the walls for now. It looked like the ravine cut the hill all the way through and it was way easier to use the path it created than climbing the slope.

Walking without footwear on a rocky ground couldn’t be comfortable, but Loki just ignored her when she suggested they could take the upper route, so she didn’t insist. He picked the pace up quickly enough and it looked like he was back to his previous, albeit silent, self and that the crisis has been averted for now.

They reached the foot of the hill and the walls started rising again rapidly and soon they walked on the floor of a deep, shadowy crevasse. Not much light reached the bottom from the narrow strip of sky high above their heads. She put one hand to the wall for guidance, it beat walking into it without noticing.

While the ravine ran almost dead straight out in the open, it started to twist and turn when it reached the hill. Whether it had something to do with the property of the fault that created it or the material the hill was made of – in contrast to the sedimentary rocks before the walls here were a homogenous dark stone that felt glass-smooth under her fingers – she couldn’t tell.

They entered the fell side by side, but Loki soon took the lead and was now walking a couple steps ahead. From the way he moved she suspected he could see a lot better in the dark, so that was only for the best, but the fear that he would just run out and leave her still settled in her brain. As surprising as it was, none of his actions suggested that he would, Natasha had to admit, but the last couple of hours also proved beyond doubt she needed him way more than he needed her. That power imbalance lodged a splinter of insecurity in her mind.

She had one more service to offer and even that wasn’t nearly as convincing of an argument as it was a few hours earlier, he could clearly handle himself even with his hands still chained. Whatever happened, they had to find civilization, for either a ride home or someone able to open that portal thingy back up, or else their only plan took a shot between the eyes. Civilization means sentient beings and working up someone who has no idea who Loki is would be way easier than forcing or convincing Natasha to free him, he was able to pull off an act of a decent, non-criminally-insane person if he put his mind to it, as evidenced by his recent behavior. Not being capable to communicate verbally might pose a problem, but he could write in at least two different alphabets (and something told Natasha that’s not really the extent of his linguistic talents) so she’d bet he would figure it out in the end, especially with that magical gift – or whatever it was – of understanding every language.

Stark relentlessly grilled Thor about what it is and how it works but got nothing more than a couple of unfunny jokes, “it is sacred ancient magic my friend” and “everyone in Asgard gets it as a babe”, which was, to be fair, probably the whole scope of Thor’s understanding of the concept. It still got Natasha irrationally mad, she has spent _years_ learning languages, yet she could speak only like six of them fluently and some brute gets to know _every single one_ just because he was born in a castle and got bashed over his head with a magic wand? That’s as far on a cosmic social injustice scale as one could go.

Would Loki know more about that? Likely. He was obviously at least a tad smarter than his brother (again, who wasn’t?), on top of being a fucking wizard… Wait, no, “wizard” wasn’t an appropriate term, it implied someone old, wise, and right-minded, like Gandalf. Loki’s way of doing his magic stuff was more casual and off-handy when he was using his glowstick and he could still fight hand-to-hand, not to mention him being a straight-up bad guy. A warlock? Nah, still too Tolkieny. A battlemage? Yeah, that’s more like it. On the other hand, Gandalf used a sword and was barely casting any spells and Loki was at least something like a thousand years old if one went with the earliest mentions of his name in human literature, even if he looked no day older than thirty-five, lucky bastard. Speaking of injustice…

She pretty much faceplanted into Loki’s back. Lost in thought and wading in near-darkness, she didn’t even notice he stopped.

“Ugh, sorry,” she mumbled and stepped around to see why he stopped. “Wow…” 

The crevasse curved one last time and ended abruptly, current landscape cut away as if with a blade and replaced with a grand, broad plain. It rolled on for miles until it culminated with a thin line of water close to the horizon. The sun has already set, but there was a red afterglow still visible above the waterline. The indigo sky was clear save for a couple of wispy clouds. She wasn’t sure if it was an optical illusion or a fact, but she’d swear she could see quite a visible curvature to the horizon line.

It was truly, breathtakingly beautiful.

She took a couple steps forward and warily peeked out. The stream bed they were walking on cut away along with the walls, water warping over the edge and falling away from view. The ground created a ridge, good six or seven hundred feet high counting from the foot to the top, with the stream outlet located around the middle. To the left, the ridge went on for miles until it wasn’t discernible any longer, due to the atmospheric perspective. Or maybe it just ended there, it was hard to tell. To the right, it hid behind a protrusion after a couple hundred yards. Also, what she took for shrubbery covering the plains before, turned out to be treetops.

She glanced down. There was a bit of open space at the foot of the bluff. And, while she wasn’t agoraphobic or afraid of heights, she still had to fight a surge of vertigo.

She turned to Loki. “Now what?”

His fingers traced a downward facing wave, touching the palm of his other hand at the end.

She refused to interpret this. She shook her head fervently.

He showed the same sign again.

“No,” she insisted, “No way.”

He crooked his head and raised an eyebrow, obviously amused.

“Listen, I know you’re an indestructible alien asshole, but I’m _a human_. Or a _meek_ _mortal_ , as you’d probably put it if you could,” she sneered, “And we _mortals_ tend to _die_ if we fall from a fucking three hundred feet.”

He put his hands above his head, as for diving.

“Or jump, same difference.” She was going to be the ultimate master of Pictionary once this was over.

He went over to the edge just like she did a moment earlier and peeked over. An urge to push him off crossed her mind before quickly sizzling away.

“I mean it,” she warned him, putting a hand on her hip for a better effect, “If you want me dead you should’ve let me fall into that previous hole. I’m not going to leap off this cliff. That’s final.”

He pointed at the water seeping over the stones then down the face of the ridge, where it tumbled away and disappeared out of view.

“That dribble probably isn’t even reaching the foot of the drop, just disperses and turns into mist,” she pointed out, “And even if it does, it doesn’t have enough energy to form a deep pool.” There was a small pond at the base of the waterfall, but it looked very unimpressive, especially when viewed from such a height.

His fingers ran over the obsidian wall, then he pointed at one of light, thin, horizontal lines, barely visible on it, starting at the bottom and ending maybe at two feet off the ground.

It _might_ be some sort of a mineral residue, meaning the water level was occasionally higher, like after rainfalls or spring melts or whatever else could exist on this planet. Or not. How did he even notice that?

“I’d like to point out that I’m very discontent that we are even discussing technical details after I said no t _wice_ ,” she announced, “Besides, it doesn’t matter, even if the water is deep enough, it’s going to be hard as a solid rock if you hit it from this height.” She couldn’t remember the exact numbers, but it sounded about right. 

_No._

“Why?”

He drew a circle in the air and then a second, smaller one next to it and pointed at the space where the smaller circle would be.

“Uhm…”

He waved his hands. Then he picked a stone, held it out at his chest’s height and then let it fall. It landed among other, identical rocks on the stream bed.

She had no idea what he meant with this one, but she had to admire his willingness to communicate, any way possible. She would probably lose it to annoyance a couple of times already if she were in his place, but Loki was persistent. She has never heard him utter a single word that wasn’t meant to offend or incite dissent and now he was going out of his way to _negotiate_ with her like a person. Why?

He picked another pebble and threw it, this time off the cliff, then pointed at her.

She blinked, confused.

He sighed in frustration, ran a hand across his face and reached for another cobble, but this time, instead of throwing it, he squeezed it in his hand. When he opened his fist, it revealed crushed pieces. _Now that’s impressive._ He picked one with a sharp edge, turned towards the wall and started scratching letters on the smooth stone.

“You could’ve started with that, you know,” she supplied. He ignored her then stepped away.

 _GRAVITY_ , it said.

Okay, that one was on her.

“Something in particular about gravity?” she asked, trying hard to not sound condescending but failing halfway through, “Or you just wanted to remind me about gravity in general? Because, let me tell you, I’m aware.”

He raised his index finger and his thumb, then moved them closer.

“It’s lower!?” she asked. She hasn’t noticed. “By how much?”

He put up ten fingers.

“Is it in some Asgardian units?” she inquired, “Because it’s something like ten on Earth if you count with ours.”

 _No_.

Hmm, they were entering the murky water of science and math and physics and whatnot. Not only it wasn’t her forte, she also had no idea if any overlap even existed between what she was taught and what he knew. On the other hand, they say that math is the language of the universe, so maybe…

“You mean percentages?”

_Yes._

Would she really not register the change if the gravity was at ninety percent? She jumped in place, trying to assess if there was any difference and… maybe there was, but nothing that she couldn’t put on a curb of different air pressure or air composition or the tiredness and lack of sleep altering her perception. Would ten percent be significant enough of a change for a human to even notice? She suspected it should be, but it was not like she had any frame of reference on how it would feel.

And, more importantly, how did he figure it out and to such a high precision?

“Are you pulling the numbers out of your ass?”

 _No_.

Even if it was true, it didn’t change much. It was still high and still too risky.

“Why are we even having this discussion?” she grunted, “If you’re so bent on getting us down there why don’t you just push me off and be done with it?”

He huffed and rolled his eyes, like that was some ridiculous concept.

“What?!” she leaped closer and pointed a finger at his face, “You had no problem with throwing Stark out of his penthouse’s window, how is this any different!?

And there it was, that anger, malice and resentment she would expect of him returning to his features, hands clenched into fists. But it was just for a blink and you miss it moment, before he turned away, avoiding her accusatory glare.

She was pushing it and she knew it and it was of a little to no importance that she was bringing up valid points. “Come on,” she pleaded, “Can’t we go just spend the night here? Or trace back to the plain and camp there? We will find a way down that’s not a thirty story drop tomorrow.”

He shrugged without even looking at her.

She went over to the edge. Now that the sun has set, it was getting darker and darker every minute. And, sure enough, there were stars. So far, she could see only the biggest, brightest ones but soon it would change. If Loki recognized any already, his expression didn’t show it, but it was harder to tell now, without much light. She should ask, she knew, but she dreaded the answer, so she didn’t.

She swept the area, looking for lights, outlines of roads or structures, wisps of smoke or anything that could indicate any sort of artificial activity but there was nothing, only trees and grass and rocks and water and the expanse of the silent sky above.

As much as the notion sounded ridiculous, there was something making her consider it still. Because, maybe Loki was right? In theory, they could turn back and go inland, but - if there even was some sort of a settlement - it would, more likely than not, be close to the coast, at least if Earth’s standards applied. It could take them days to find a proper, safer way down, and she didn’t even know how long the night would last. Whichever way they went, they would have to rely on luck to locate a new source of drinking water, there was no telling if they would be able to find food. And even if they did, it’s not like Loki could have any, that also put forth a certain deadline. A human could go on without solids for about a month, but it would be much sooner than that one starts to lose their strength. Was it more or less than that for Loki? He was tougher and more durable, the immediate connotation would be that he could go on for longer, but, on the other hand, that potential had to come from somewhere. And he didn’t look like he had that much extra energy left to spare.

During her parachute training they had to make those “dry” jumps from a tower, teaching them how to properly land both on water and on the ground, she had a decent idea how to minimize the risk of injury on impact. The top level of the training grounds’ tower was only at thirty meters, which would make it like one fourth of the drop she was facing, but the same basic rules should apply and she was pretty sure she’d heard somewhere that the limit for a doable jump, before the velocity gets too high, is around two fifty hundred feet. She was as fit as human being can get, or maybe even more than that. Taking a lower gravity into equation, she might actually be able to pull it off…

Was she really considering it? It was pure madness with a huge “approved by Loki” sticker on it.

_Oh well._

“Okay,” she muttered finally, “But we need to go now, or it gets too dark to see at all.”

He looked at her, his eyes slanted. Was he laughing at her?

“You want me to go first?” she offered.

He shook his head, took a few steps back, did a small run-up and bounced off the cliff like it was nothing. _Show-off_.

A couple of seconds passed until she heard a faint splash. Just the drop time alone was enough to give her a pause, but it was too late now. She didn’t look down to check whether he made it safely or not. It barely mattered at this point, if he did, it’s fine, if he didn’t – well, she still needed to get down to be of any use.

She took a deep breath and stepped back. She had to be precise, the pool was small, so it would be easy to overjump, but she didn’t want to stay too close to the wall either, or the updraft would affect her and send her tumbling towards the solid ground or at least stop her from positioning properly, which would be just as fatal. 

She took a last look around and noticed Loki’s letters etched into stone.

 _That’s gonna give some alien archeologist quite a riddle to solve,_ she thought and started running.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have Natasha throw in an occasional metric unit into her calculations/estimates, she grew up in Russia/USSR (depending on which version of the origin you go for, although I do have a favourite, which becomes evident later on) but adapted to living in US later. I know it might be seen as a mistake by some, but there’s a rule to this madness, I promise. She also occasionally uses British equivalents for some more obscure words and phrases, because British English is the one that is taught in Europe as the default and the less common ones might not get overwritten even if you live where they are not in use for years. That’s also intentional. I tried to keep those out of other characters’ lines, but – because BE is the version of the English language I speak – something might have slipped my attention.


	7. Hot coals

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which some answers are provided, to no one's delight.

The rush of air was deafening. She hugged her knees close to her chest. The vague outline of the pool was getting closer and closer, so she held her breath and squeezed her eyes shut.

The impact shot a wave of burning pain through her soles and thighs and forced air out of her lungs, but the water parted and closed above her. She tumbled down.

She opened her eyes, but it made no difference. The world has collapsed into a cold, dark, unitless cocoon around her. She let go of her knees and tried to move, to swim up, but she couldn’t even tell which way was which anymore.

Her back hit a solid surface. She turned and used all the strength that was left in her legs to bounce off the rocky bottom, to give herself some momentum. She could now see the faintest glow high above her, but it was so far, too far. Her hands beat the water frantically, her chest screamed for oxygen, her muscles spasmed and she had to fight to keep her mouth shut.

It would be easy, so easy, to just let go. To let the water fill her lungs and the undercurrent to carry her body away.

Her moves became slow and uncoordinated, her muscles too weak to fight against the resistance.

She still tried, one last time, and her head crashed through the surface. She took a breath and then spluttered as some water got into her throat along with air. The effort took her back under. She tried again and this time she was able to hold her head above the surface for long enough to take in a bit of her surroundings.

The day has finally run out and even the pink aura that served as the last source of light up above was now hidden behind the tree line. The water’s surface was jet black and she could only barely make out the outlines of the stones on the edges of the pond.

There was a clank behind her. She turned and swam in the direction it came from, trying not to think how much harder it would be with one’s hands engulfed in heavy shackles. He handled it, obviously, so it mustn’t be _that_ hard.

Loki has scrambled out of the water and onto the edge, his legs still in the pond, wet hair falling over his face. She threaded water until her feet hit solid ground, then pulled herself out of the pool and onto the stones. She crawled a few steps further, until her hands found a dry patch of grass, and collapsed there.

“I have an idea,” she panted as she turned to lie on her back, “Let’s not do that ever again.”

There was a splash then some rustling and rattling as Loki settled down somewhere next to her.

She unbuckled her belt and tossed it away. She should probably do something about it, check for damage, but whatever, she would deal with that after she gets some sleep.

“I’m sorry for screaming at you earlier”, she said quietly, her words getting slurry from drowsiness, “about touching me. And about Stark.”

The waterfall rumbled, the leaves rustled and the foreign stars blinked over her head.

“I’m not going to pretend I know why you did what you did or why you dragged me into this. Or that I could forgive you, even if that forgiveness were mine to give,” she paused, not sure where she was going with this, “but I know that you didn’t mean to offend me.”

 _This time_ , her mind supplied, but she didn’t say it out loud. “I’m just tired, that’s all.”

She didn’t care what Loki thought of her, not exactly, but to needlessly antagonize him when her survival depended on his help and cooperation was a textbook definition of idiocy, even without taking his questionable mental stability into equation.

A small snuffle, that could’ve been anything between a sigh and a laugh was all she got. Not being able to communicate verbally was even more problematic in the dark.

\---

She was running through a forest. Trees were thick and tall and stood in regular intervals, like columns in a chapel, adorned with leaves made of pure crystal that split the light into colors of the spectrum.

A thick layer of mist covered the ground.

There were whispers in the air, calling her, hovering at the edge of her hearing. She couldn’t quite catch the words, but she still understood the meaning.

 _Come to us, come to us, come to us_ , they chanted.

She swerved to avoid a tree. A tendril of mist rose to thwart her. She ran straight through it.

 _Come to us_ , the voices insisted.

The mist was thick as mud and stuck to her skin like cobwebs. She tried to untangle herself, to push through but it dragged her down. She fell to her knees. The world danced around with all its colors and she was sinking, deeper and deeper, into the mist.

 _Come to us_ , the voices demanded. 

She tried to answer, she tried to plead, but the thick smoke wrapped around her, muffling her words.

 _Come to us_ , the voices sung. 

She couldn’t see any more, she couldn’t even breathe, the mist was too thick and there was only whiteness and whispers and – over all this – a dominating chant.

_COME TO US._

\---

She woke up with a start. She rubbed her eyes to whisk away the remains of the nightmare.

It was daybreak already, the world was bathed in a soft rose-gold light, but she still felt tired. Was it because the nights here were that much shorter than days or because her batteries just needed longer to recharge after that overexertion? She was never the one to sleep in, but there are exceptions for every rule. She considered just closing her eyes and falling back asleep.

She dragged herself up to a sitting position. Sleeping on bare ground did nothing good to her already sore body. _This must be how old people feel._

She half expected to find herself alone, but no.

Loki sat cross-legged on the grass, resting his back against a boulder, his chained hands cradled in his lap. He wasn’t sleeping but staring off into the distance absently. That was slowly but surely becoming the main Loki’s theme.

His hair has dried into a mess of lazy curls and, she had to admit, that was a much more flattering look than whatever the abomination of a hairdo he sported before was. If she ever gets bored with her job, she can always become an interstellar hairdresser; it looks like the space is in a sore need of one.

She reached for her utility belt. It was right where she – foolishly – left it last night but it didn’t look like it was disturbed at all. She still intended to inspect it, thoroughly. She also needed to clean the guns and assess the damage their little fun waterfall ride did to her meagre supplies. She got up.

“We should get a fire going,” she said as she plopped down on the grass closer to Loki, so she could both work and be on a lookout if he tried anything stupid. Because who the hell knew which setting he operated on today. 

He didn’t react, it looked like he didn’t register her at all. His eyes were glassy and empty. Whatever he was looking at was not on this plane of reality. Was he doing some of that magical bullshit of his? She thought he couldn’t, but that was according to his own words, so who knows? But if he could, would he be still stuck here with her tagging along? Natasha very much doubted it.

She still looked the way he was facing, just to be sure and…

“Holy shit!” she gulped.

The mellow pinkish gleam wasn’t coming from the sun. It was a moon, no, scratch that, _a fucking planet_ , rising on the sky above the tops of the trees. And not in the unostentatious way Earth’s moon just hangs in there. No, it took like a quarter of the firmament and radiated enough light to turn the night into a day.

She stared with her mouth open.

It was so close or so huge – or both – that she could clearly see the bands of different shades and widths that formed the surface, swirly and irregular. It looked a bit like Jupiter, if she remembered her basic cosmology right, but neither the colors nor the shapes matched up.

How could two planets be so close together without collapsing into one another? Was it because that other one was made of gas? Or maybe… Were they on a fucking MOON?

Loki and his bloody portals couldn’t even take them to a proper planet.

Well, at least this one had an atmosphere and running water and plants and _air_ , so maybe that was not that bad for a lucky shot after all. She had a creeping suspicion she wouldn’t be able to prance about that thing that hung in the sky for anywhere as long.

Did the fact that they were on a moon of a size of a planet rather than on an actual planet change anything? If anything, being so close to a celestial body would make it easier to pinpoint their location, if Loki’s claims about his star charting prowess held any water.

“Hey,” she called and got no reaction whatsoever. “Hello!?”

She leaned forward and bumped his shoulder. He jumped as if burned and tried to scurry away, but the rock behind his back stopped him. His gaze was disoriented, his eyes shooting around and wide with panic, his hands raised defensively.

 _What the… “_ Hey, it’s me,” she said, her voice quiet and soothing. She put her hand on his forearm. “I’m… I’m not going to hurt you. No one’s going to hurt you. You’re… safe.” _For a certain definition of safe at least._

His eyes focused and – as soon as it happened – his expression snapped into a carefully crafted, blank preset. He turned away and placed his hands back in his lap, but his chest was heaving, and his shoulders trembled.

She pulled her hand back. What was that? Some sort of a daydream he got stuck in? A panic attack?

Just thinking about what could trigger a panic attack in someone like Loki made her anxious. On the other hand, he wasn’t all-there, was he? Or maybe it was just exhaustion finally taking its toll, he didn’t look like he slept at all.

“Quite a view, isn’t it?” _Come on, I just need you to keep it together for a little while longer._

His breathing was slowly returning to normal and he was no longer shaking uncontrollably, so that was good. But when he looked up, his eyes were shiny with unshed tears.

 _Uhm._ “I bet that you get to see stuff like this a lot, being so old and… travelling around.” _That’s one way to put it._

He shrugged dismissively.

“Oh, don’t tell me there’s not an ounce of appreciation for beauty left in that stone-cold heart of yours,” she teased and flashed a glib smile.

It was meant as a light-hearted jab, but the gravelly offended glare she got in response made her reconsider. Then he pulled into himself, wrapped his arms around his knees and hid his face from her scrutiny.

She sighed and stood up, leaving Loki to work through whatever was happening in his crazy brain on his own. She had stuff to do.

**\---**

She hesitated a moment before she started undressing. She wasn’t a prude, far from it, but it still felt awkward. But Loki was facing the other way and even if he decided to suddenly stop brooding and do something productive, well, she was working in a male-dominated field, SHIELD was too progressive for gender segregated changing rooms and she was used to stares.

She took off the wristbands first. They looked fine but the charge indicator didn’t react when she pressed the button, so something was most likely shorted. She still put them away carefully. She removed the hidden blade, unlaced and took off her boots. She unzipped and slid her uniform of her arms and then down her legs with a sigh of relief. It was usually pretty comfortable, and it did great job at not restricting her moves, but a whole day of sweating, followed by taking a dive and then sleeping for a couple of hours without drying off first took its toll. She was wearing a standard issue briefs and a sleeveless undershirt underneath. She took those off too.

The water was colder than she remembered but it still felt good and worked better than a cup of coffee would at waking her all the way up. At least that was what she told herself.

She rinsed her hair and swam a couple laps around the pond before stepping out. The air was chilly on her skin, enough to send shivers down her spine. Not cold though, at least for now. The planet hanging above gave away plenty of light but no heat to speak of and she had no idea how long it would take before the actual sun rises.

She put her under-armor clothes and boots back on, then washed the uniform.

Loki was still where she left him, but he was now curled on the ground and it looked like he was dozing off. She slowed down and tried to keep her steps quiet to not disturb him, but he still stirred when she approached.

“Rest,” she whispered, “I’ll keep watch.”

\---

She was wary not to wander off too far. Who knew what Loki would do if he woke up and she was not around after she assured him she would be on the guard duty? Not to mention that keeping watches was the reasonable thing to do and the fact that she didn’t even think of that before passing out was another testament of how the day wore her out.

Sure, it meant leaving her safety in Loki’s hands when she was at her most vulnerable, but somehow that perspective seemed less ridiculous that she would assume. He could’ve killed her like a hundred times yesterday, hell, she would have done that for him if he didn’t intervene. It seemed like he didn’t even use his chance to go through her stuff. Besides, she won’t go far without sleeping.

She was able to find some fallen branches that looked like they would burn without leaving the perimeter of the clearing they were camping on. She also gathered some dry bark and leaves for kindling. She was on a lookout for anything that might look even remotely edible, but there were no fruits, no nuts, not even flowers she could see.

Loki was sleeping when she came back and, this time, he didn’t wake up. He was resting on his side, using his hands as a pillow, his face framed in a flurry of dark hair. With the ever-present tension gone from his features he looked different. Calm, almost like a whole new person. Nearly… normal, if it weren’t for the muzzle covering his mouth. Natasha wasn’t a fan of that goddamned piece of metal from the very start and by now she hated it with a passion, if just for how much trouble it cost her. She shivered at the thought of how it would feel to be forced to wear it.

She picked a grassless, flat area and proceeded with building a fire, starting with leaves and bark, adding some smaller sticks, and topping it off with a couple of those bigger branches.

She had no lighter or matches. No flint either, so she would have to improvise. Funnily enough, she never needed to do that before. Having a fire is usually not the smartest move if you’re hiding behind enemy lines, lighter, or no lighter.

She still had a few ideas what to do, at least in theory. She could use the knife and a rock method, but she would need a piece of quartz for that and most of the stones she could see scattered around were shards of that dark, volcanic rock, coming from the ridge that towered over their camp. She also didn’t want to risk denting the blade, as she was already at the spare.

A piece of glass from her little flashlight could be used as a lens, but that would require sun and she couldn’t wait for that. She needed a fire, the moon-planet-thing was moving across the sky a lot quicker than the sun. It was already halfway through disappearing behind the line of the trees and soon it would start getting dark again.

That left the old, trusted way of using traction, loads and loads of traction. She picked a stick and a piece of bark that looked suitable for the task and got to work with a grunt.

\---

It took an unreasonably long amount of time to get the tiniest of sparks going and it didn’t even catch on to anything before fizzling out. She needed to reorganize the setup a couple of times and her palms were covered in blisters before she succeeded at producing a small flame. She carefully moved it to the heart of the firepit and watched it spread over dry leaves at the bottom.

The flame immediately roared up and she needed to jump away to avoid having her eyebrows singed. A billow of embers rose up and promptly lighted a few patches of grass on fire. She stomped the flames out with her boot.

Oh yeah, higher oxygen levels. She forgot about that. She was lucky she didn’t pick a place closer to the tree line or she would set the whole jungle ablaze. She suddenly felt grateful Loki wasn’t awake to sneer at her mistake.

The finer fuel burned out and the flame died down somewhat. The thicker pieces didn’t produce so much flame, but the blaze still consumed wood faster than she originally expected. She needed to gather more if she wanted it to last.

\---

It was completely dark again when Loki woke up. He stood up, stretched his arms above his head and came over to sit by the fire. His hair was a rat’s nest, and his eyes were puffy from sleeping.

“Slept well?” she asked.

He shrugged.

“I’m not trying to interrogate you, you know,” she said, keeping her tone light. “I’m just making a conversation. And it’s hard since I need to carry both sides of it.

“The thing is, we can either sit around, wait for the dawn in silence and let our minds run in circles or we can talk. Like civil people. Or rather, I can talk, and you can nod, shake your head and do that shoulder thing you seem to like so much.”

He looked at her with slight amusement, his eyes twinkling in the firelight.

“I promise I won’t ask open ended questions. Deal?”

A nod.

“So… Slept well?”

He chuckled and nodded.

“See? This isn’t that hard.”

There was a stretch of silence. She tossed a piece of wood into the fire and stroked it with a stick. It settled, sending embers up the air. She eyed them suspiciously, but none started any new fires this time.

“I almost burned the forest down trying to get the fire going,” she admitted. “I didn’t expect it to burn so bright. More oxygen does that, I guess.”

_Yes._

So, he knew. Oh, of course he knew.

“And you probably know a better way to do that than rubbing your hands raw, too,” she said, showing off her abused palms.

_No._

“You never had to light a fire without matches? Or a flint? Or a space lighter?”

He shook his head and slowly reached to touch the muzzle. _Right._

“That’s cheating, you know. The laws of physics are called _laws_ for a reason.”

He rolled his eyes.

There was silence again. Hundreds of questions milled about in her head waiting to be asked but she was wary not to disturb the unstable equilibrium of Loki’s mood. But there was one that constantly pushed to the front, like an impatient pupil holding their hand up.

“So… Were you able to figure out where we are?”

Loki looked away, turning a single link of the chain between his fingers idly, before slowly shaking his head _._

 _Fuck!_ “Not even a rough estimate?”

_No._

She ran a hand through her hair. _This isn’t… optimal._

“Oh well, it was a long shot anyway” she said, keeping disappointment carefully out of her voice. “And it doesn’t mean much. We still have to find a mode of transportation first and knowing how far from home we are doesn’t change that.”

That logic was flawed and full of holes, she knew. There were multiple scenarios in which having at least a ballpark of their location would be of great help, she imagined. Knowing what kind of life called the system home would make them better prepared for an encounter, they would have an idea which way to go to look for it. And, most importantly, if there was anything to _find_ at all. Without that, the outlook was a lot bleaker.

Loki was too smart to not be aware of that. Was that why he had that meltdown earlier? Or was there something else?

“Listen, I know this isn’t perfect.” That was as big of an understatement as there ever was one. “But sitting on our asses and wailing in frustration won’t solve anything. There’s still a chance we’ll find something, or someone, to help us get home.”

He cringed at the last word. Right, technically it wasn’t _his_ home.

“Oh, come on, this is just a figure of speech, you know what I mean. Besides, at that point I’m totally fine with hanging around Asgard for a while if that’s where we end up,” she placated.

It didn’t look like this was the case either.

“You’re not too keen on going home.”

_No._

“Are you afraid of what they’ll do to you?”

_No._

There was a look in his eyes that suggested there was a whole story there. She couldn’t begin to guess what it was, but it was still an interesting notion. “Still, we both know that Earth is a better destination, for me and for you.”

He glanced at her.

“It doesn’t take a psychic to tell you’re in no rush to go back and face your judgement, your family or whatever it is that you want to avoid back on Asgard,” she said, matter-of-factly, “but, and do stop me if I’m wrong, you don’t seem too content with being stuck out here either. And the whole…” she waved her hand at the general direction of her lower face, “deal limits your hand quite a bit. Thor is most likely still on Earth since that Asgardian interplanetary travel stuff is broken and that’s where you need to go too.”

She was running on nothing more than bits, pieces, a gut feeling and loads of conjecture but judging from the look on Loki’s face, she hit the nail right on the head. She smiled in satisfaction.

“You might think nothing of me, or of humans in general, but I do have eyes and my cognitive functions are still operating. And it doesn’t really take that much to figure out that your best chances are in tricking Thor to help you.”

That was enough to get a raised eyebrow from Loki.

“What? He might be a great guy and all, but he is just about as sharp as his weapon of choice.”

Loki puffed out a suppressed laugh and held out his hands, palms out, pulling the chain taunt.

“Okay, I think it’s a high time to have _that_ talk. You’ve been on Earth before New York, haven’t you?”

He eyed her with suspicion.

“Come on, if that’s supposed to be a secret, there wouldn’t be entire legends about you and your friends from the sky castle written by humans.”

If that surprised him, he didn’t let that show.

“Besides, you were able to blend in when you wanted to stay unnoticed, so you have at least a barebone idea about how human customs works. And you know all those…” she went through a couple of gestures, finishing with holding out her hands, just like Loki did a moment ago, “while at the same time Thor thinks red capes are still all the rave, spends ten minutes staring blankly at a garbage truck, gets mighty confused by the concept of self-flushing toilets and calls a coffee machine ‘the wonderous Midgardian fountain of the live-giving liquid’.”

Loki chuckled. _Yes._

“You were preparing the grounds for the invasion, right?”

_No._

The answer was quick and decisive, and a complete opposite of what Natasha expected. Why would he lie? The beans have been spilled and whatever he said wouldn’t change that. Was it just out of a nasty habit?

“So, you’re just popping up on one planet or another for leisure?”

_Yes._

She leaned back, propped herself up with her elbows and looked up at the night sky. “It must be nice, being able to just… go, wherever you want. For the stars to be waypoints on your map and not just symbols hanging over your head, out of reach.”

 _Yes,_ Loki nodded and this time she completely believed the answer.


	8. Marks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which one problem is solved and some further stipulations become painfully obvious.

She sat up and looked around, disoriented, as the nightmarish visions dissolved and vanished from her mind. She must’ve fallen asleep again. She was usually a light sleeper and it was slightly alarming how easily she could do that on a fucking alien planet and with Loki around to boot.

And what’s up with the nightmares? She barely ever had dreams and almost never ones vivid enough to wake her up but somehow that rule didn’t apply here. Was it another feature of the place or was that just her anxiety flaring up?

It was dawning, hopefully for real this time, even if the sun was still hidden behind the ridge and it would be hours before they’d be able to see it. At least they weren’t stuck on a planet – or a moon – with nights that lasted for years. That was a progress.

Loki kept the fire going, there was also something sizzling on a flat piece of rock he placed on the embers.

“What’s that?” she asked, her voice rough.

Using two sticks, he picked a roasted root chunk, placed it on a piece of leaf and offered it to her.

“Is this… edible?” she asked as she gave it a dubious sniff. It smelled a bit like burnt parsnip and looked like ginger, only in a deeper, reddish-brown color. It wasn’t too appetizing but there was saliva gathering in her mouth just at the very thought of food, taste attributes be damned.

_Yes._

“For humans?”

_Yes._

“You’re sure?”

He glared at her through slanted eyes. _Yes._

“Just so you know, if you’re about to feed me a poisonous alien carrot I’m going to come back as a ghost and haunt you for all eternity,” she said lightly as she tore the root apart and bit into its mushy insides. It was hot and tasted like nothing specific, earthy, stringy, and vaguely sweet with a tangy aftertaste. “Hmm, it’s not that bad. Could use some salt. And a side of grilled chicken breasts if we are at it.”

He sent her another murderous glare and she smiled. “I’m not complaining, just providing an honest review. How did you know what to look for anyway?”

He poked his forehead. Well, she wasn’t going to get an actual answer, was she? And maybe it _was_ some general, basic knowledge for anyone who routinely visited other worlds and had to survive out in the wilderness, it’s not like she had much experience in that.

“Can I have some more?”

He handed her another piece. There was dirt under his fingernails. The very idea of Loki digging through the ground with his bare hands just to get something for her to eat was perplexing. And touching, in a deeply disturbing way.

The second serving was a lot more palatable once she got used to the taste. She went through a couple more before stopping, wary to not overeat after having an empty stomach for that long.

Loki sat back and watched her with a slight frown. She couldn’t blame him, he had to be as hungry as she was. Or maybe he _was_ trying to poison her and was just waiting for the toxin to run its course? She somehow doubted it. That didn’t strike her as a proper “Loki” thing to do, no, he would feed her and then he would stab her with a sharpened piece of rock when she was thanking him.

“Thanks,” she said and got up to drink some water.

\---

“Show me your face!”

He blinked at her in a mild confusion from where he was sitting by the fire. 

“I want to examine the… thing,” she explained. He didn’t seem too convinced. “And _yes_ , I know you said you can’t remove it and I believe you because there’s no chance in hell you’d still be wearing it if you could. But I’m not yet sold on the whole ‘curse’ thing and it drives me up the wall I haven’t even tried. So be a nice interstellar invader and turn around so I could take a look.”

He stared at her with a baffled expression but edged closer all the same. She dropped to one knee to get a better angle.

She studied how the plates overlapped each other, then traced the line where the metal met his skin with her finger. Loki visibly tensed under her touch. The design looked like it should allow some leeway for movement, yet the device still stuck to his face like it was melted on, with no clearance to squeeze even a fingernail underneath. Loki’s skin was red and irritated where the edges pressed into it, with some deeper scratches where he, most likely, attempted to remove it via brute force.

“Let me see the back,” she commanded, and he pulled his hair out of the way.

The bands ran all around his head until they met on his neck, just under the hair line. There was no clasp, no locking mechanism, no hinge, just superposing, scale-like pieces of this grey, unknown alloy. She tried pushing her nail under one on the top, but it didn’t bulge. She tried again with more force and this time it got a small, pained yelp out of Loki. She pulled her hand away instinctively. He slumped forward and let out a breath she didn’t realize he was holding.

“Wait… Is it hurting you when I touch it?”

He shrugged. She glowered at him until he finally gave up and bowed his head.

She pressed her palms to her eyes so hard she could see the stars under her eyelids. _This fucking… thing. Fuck it, fuck it all the way to Asgard. If I lay my eyes on Thor ever again, I’ll strangle him with his own stupid, pointless cape._

She took a deep breath. _Calm down, it does you no good to get mad at things you cannot change._

“Does it do that when you touch it too?”

_Yes._

_Fucking Space Vikings with their medieval ideas for justice and punishment._

“Is it some sort of an anti-tamper protection?” she asked.

He shrugged again.

“And if you had to guess?”

Instead of answering, he picked up a piece of half-burned wood from the firepit and put forth a smooth, flat stone. It had to be prepared beforehand, so he found it and kept it around just in case. _Hmmm._ He turned to her. There was a trickle of blood coming down his chin again. He wiped it off with his sleeve without paying it much attention.

 _I THINK SO,_ he wrote. _  
A PART OF THE SPELL  
TO MAKE IT FUN  
FOR ME._

“I wasn’t trying to… use it against you,” she said, because nothing better came to her mind, and regretted it immediately. Of course she wasn’t trying to use something she didn’t even know was there, what a useless thing to say.

_I KNOW._

“Then why did you let me?”

_YOU WANTED TO TRY._

“I wouldn’t if you told me what it does!”

_YOU WOULD NOT  
BELIEVE ME._

_Fair point._ “Like you had any issues with putting your foot down before.”

_I WANTED YOU  
TO TRY AS WELL._

“If it’s some sort of a self-flagellation thing, keep me out of it next time.”

There was no space left, so he flipped the stone over.

_IT IS NOT.  
I SHOULD HAVE  
KNOWN BETTER._

There was something in Loki’s expression, something she couldn’t quite pinpoint because this time he wasn’t deliberately turning it up to eleven for her convenience. Something that was supposed to stay personal. Like regret, maybe. 

Yeah, some regret and sense of shame would be quite appropriate in his situation. But that was probably just her wishful thinking.

Loki twisted on the shackle absentmindedly, to keep it from chafing.

_Oh, yeah, those._

The bruises around his wrists looked even worse than before, she realized. The marks on his ankles were still there too, as well as the Hulk-induced cuts on his temple and on the bridge of his nose. Shouldn’t those have mended by now? Thor’s stab wound was just a pale pink scar in the evening of the same day and completely gone come next morning. Stark’s scan revealed he got extremely lucky and the blade missed vital organs, but it was still a far more serious injury than some superficial bruises and scuff marks. Was Thor more of an outlier rather than a meaningful example of his race’s abilities in that area? But if he were, Loki would not recover from the bashing he got from Hulk like he did, which was pretty much instantaneously.

That was before he got that wretched piece of hardware from hell locked onto him though.

“It interferes with your healing too, doesn’t it?”

_Yes._

“Does it mean that this won’t heal?” she asked, pointing vaguely at his hands.

_IT WILL.  
IN TIME._

She closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. Right. Even if he would get better _in time_ , the cuffs weren’t helping. Plus, all they did so far was cause problems, for both of them, with potentially deadly repercussions.

Making up her mind, she grabbed her tool set and sat on the ground across from Loki.

“Let me see your hands,” she said, showing off the tools.

Instead of following the command, he started writing again.

 _I DON’T MIND IT_  
IF IT MAKES YOU FEEL  
SAFE.

She couldn’t help herself, she just started laughing. If it makes _her_ feel _safe_? Because, really, who was this guy and what the hell did he do to I-am-destined-to-rule and you-pathetic-mortals-are-vermin Loki from three days ago? And, if it was some sort of reverse psychology he tried to pull off on her, it had to be the most awkward use of the strategy she has ever seen. Also, no, the chain didn’t make her feel safe.

“Okay, very funny. Now cut this defeatist bullshit and show me your hands before I change my mind.”

He did comply then, but the doubtful expression didn’t leave his face.

“For the record, I’m not doing this because I feel sorry for you or that I feel like I owe you anything,” she said casually. It was mostly true. “I didn’t want to remove the shackles in the first place because I needed a leverage.”

He frowned. She wasn’t sure whether he genuinely did not understand what she meant or if he just wanted her to say it out loud, but she was far beyond the point of caring.

“I wanted you to have a reason to stick around and not leave me behind.” _Or kill me_ , she thought, but left it out. “And by now… Well, if you have a reason, it’s obviously not this. There’s no point in unnecessary risking both our lives in case something that requires you to use two hands happens. We need to work together on this. I hope you can see that.”

He was still frowning.

“Now sit still like a frog and don’t even dare to move a muscle,” she said and carefully turned the cuff around to examine it, “because I’m at my last suitable torsion wrench and the locks will not be exactly easier to operate after you gave them a bath.”

As far as she could tell, the wrist shackles were made from the same material but used a different design than the pair she removed earlier from Loki’s ankles. The metal bands were thinner and narrower, not even two inches in width and half an inch thick, but made for a much tighter fit, suggesting SHIELD had them manufactured in various diameters then specifically fitted onto every individual for increased security. Which made both perfect sense and inexplicably distraught her at the same time. The keyhole was located on the upper edge and not on the side too, the entry shaft perpendicular to the arm and as far out of reach of the wearer’s fingers as possible, most likely for the same reason.

“This angle won’t work,” she said and scuttled over to sit by his side, then looped her hand under his arm. She felt him freeze when their hips touched and she couldn’t argue, the position was far from comfortable, for multiple reasons. “This is going to be tricky and I have to see what I’m doing,” she explained, more to herself than to Loki.

She examined the cuff from the new angle, assessing the damage. There was indeed some dust embedded between the teeth of the hinge, mineral residue from water too. She needed to scrape off some dirt that got stuck in the keyhole with a poke to even be able to insert tools into the lock in the first place.

The lock was quite a bit different than the ones on the ankle shackles as well. Whoever designed those, most likely figured out an easier access required a higher level of safety measures and got on with that with a passion. She suspected that just from the shape of the opening, but initial probing confirmed her concern. The tumbler was spring-loaded to move out of the way until the key was inserted and it took her good few minutes to even align it in a way that would allow access to the first of two rows of pins. She pushed one in the back up. It didn’t move at first and required her to apply significant force before it slid out of the way, its jerky movement telling a bleak story about the state of the mechanism. Then it stuck in a retracted position and no amount of wiggling the tumbler or poking at it with the end of the pick could get it to release again.

She uttered a curse and Loki raised an eyebrow. He didn’t look even a bit nervous though and she wondered whether he in fact did not mind being restrained like that or if it was just a pose to ensure she wouldn’t change her mind. She bet on the latter, but then again, space aliens (and Loki in particular), so she couldn’t really tell for sure.

“The pins are stuck,” she informed but it did not look like it cleared out a lot for him, so she added, “which means I’d have to force it, which might break either my tools, for which I don’t have a spare, obviously, or damage the lock altogether, making it impossible to open at all.”

He tipped his head, signaling her to go on.

“Let me check the other one first, maybe it’s not as wrecked,” she said and took the tools out, the barrel snapping out of alignment the moment she did, with a very unpleasant scrape. “And wow, your hands are _cold_.”

He immediately yanked his hands away.

“What did I tell you about sitting still?” she scoffed. “Now, behave yourself and let me see the other cuff.”

He regarded her with a frown for a moment, then his gaze fell to the shackles. He untangled himself from her grasp, got up and moved to her other side, hesitantly presenting the cuff to her. She fought hard not to sigh. Where did that reluctance come from all of sudden?

The other shackle wasn’t in a better condition, at least visually. She bit down another curse, belatedly scorning herself for not getting to it earlier. There was a hint of guilt in there somewhere as well, but she did her best to disregard it. So what if he got stuck with his hands bound until they reached home? It’s not like it’s her fault he was in this position in the first place, was it?

She blew her hair away from her face and managed not to wince when the metal rubbed against his injured wrist when she twisted on it to get to the lock.

She got to work. It wasn’t going much easier, although the tumbler did move at least and – once she aligned it properly – pins moved as well, albeit not smoothly, so it made it a lot harder to determine between the false gates, the shear line and just the traction that was there due to exposure to the elements.

She got the last pin on the first row to bind, allowing her to turn on the tumbler slightly to open the second row for picking. It rotated to around half the required angle then jammed. She put some more pressure on the torsion wrench and redoubled the efforts to keep her hands steady.

The spring released and the barrel popped out of axis, trapping her tools inside.

“Shit. That’s not good,” she said and tugged on his hand, pinning it down on her knee to have a better working angle, forcing Loki to lean in closer. She retrieved the rake pick from the toolbox and pushed it inside the hole. Her temple was touching his arm, it was the only position in which she could see what she was doing properly, and she fought hard against her instincts to keep herself from jerking away. She could feel the unnatural coolness of his skin even through a layer of fabric.

The keyhole opening was so narrow there was barely any leeway, but, with a considerable amount of fiddling, she got the barrel to align again, then twisted the wrench to release the trapped pick.

There was a scrape and an unmistakable scrunch of something breaking. She tried pulling out the tool, but it was firmly lodged inside. _That’s it. You’re stuck. I hope you really don’t mind._

She let out a heavy sigh and tried again.

The second attempt ended with her removing the mangled pick and the shaft part of a broken wrench from the keyhole. She groaned in frustration.

She tossed the destroyed tools away and rummaged through the tiny toolbox, desperately trying to find a passable replacement, but there was nothing left that would be suitable for the task and the mechanism was infuriatingly specific. She settled on a smaller, shorter pair, because it was the only one that would even fit inside the hole. She bit down on the end of the pick, bending the tip slightly, so it would reach all the way to bottom-out the pins.

Loki traced her fumbling with intrigue but still didn’t look all that worried. If it was a false front, it was a damn good one.

There was now piece of metal stuck inside the lock, which made it even harder to operate and the new torsion tool was so short there was only a fraction of an inch sticking out of the hole, which made it close to impossible to get enough torque to rotate the tumbler.

Her palms got sweaty, so she wiped them on her shirt. She did not remember being as stressed out when opening a lock in her life, and there was that one instance when she needed to lockpick her way out of a bunker before a dirty bomb exploded and buried her under the rubble or-slash-and filled her body with shrapnel. It didn’t even have a counter, so she did not know how much time she had.

It turned out to be a dud, but still.

She got the first-row pins to lock again and twisted the barrel by forty-five degrees. She knew she won’t be able to hold it in this position for the long minutes needed to align the second row, not with the flimsy tool she was using now, so, in a last-ditch resort, she shoved the rake inside and ran it across the pins.

The latch jerked and the moment the spring extended to push the barrel away the lock clicked dully and released. She blinked in surprise because, hell, it shouldn’t have worked. She let out the breath she was holding and wiped the sweat off her forehead. Loki tentatively wiggled his hand but couldn’t get the hinge to swing open just from the movement alone.

“Let me,” she said and pulled the two halves of the shackle apart, revealing scrapped, bruised skin underneath. “You might want to rinse it later,” she noted, “so it doesn’t get infected. Can you even get an infection?”

_No._

“Lucky you. Still, it would probably heal faster if you did. Or not. What do I know about space aliens’ biology?”

He blew out a laugh.

“Okay, let’s try the other one again,” she said, “but, just so you know, the risk is even greater, now that I don’t have a proper tool anymore.”

He raised his free hand above his head.

“Yeah, but you still might want it off, right?”

He made a small, noncommittal noise, then a small flinch crossed his features.

“Oh, look at me, mister tough guy, who doesn’t mind a twenty-pound dead weight slowing me down in case of a danger,” she mocked. “Just be still.”

He rolled his eyes in an even more theatrical way than usually but draped his right arm over his shoulder to get it out of the way and placed his left hand on her knee. Then he stopped moving.

She pushed the tools inside; she could feel the jerkiness in the movement of the latch and how the tumbler resisted her manipulations even more than before. She aligned the mechanism and went over the pins. She got to four out of six of the first row before the barrel fell out again. She forced it back into position with the rake and readjusted the pins, but this time the tumbler didn’t move even a bit, only made a clicking sound as the pawl stopped it. The tumbler fell again and there was a snap, probably the spring giving way. She pushed the wrench inside, but it wouldn’t bulge anymore. Yeah, she got it properly jammed.

“I don’t think I can open this one,” she admitted quietly. She still turned the shackle around, checking if she could maybe try taking it apart from the hitch, but the rivet was completely hidden inside the hinge and she wouldn’t be able to get it out even if she had proper tools and tried brute-forcing it. “I’m sorry.”

He took his hand away and waved it dismissively, the chain jingling loudly, and she realized he deliberately had to keep it from clanking all the time until now. He stood up and stretched his arms, testing the new range of movement, then he grabbed the stone tablet and started scribbling on it again. From her perspective she couldn’t see what it was, so she waited for him to finish.

He was using his right hand now, while he used his left before. Hmm, it wasn’t common for ambidextrous people to prefer left, but that was down to convenience and hell, maybe it went the other way around in space? 

He finished and showed the tablet to her.

_WHAT IS YOUR LEVERAGE NOW?_

A wave of terror crashed over her. So it all _was_ just an elaborate ruse to get her to cooperate. How did she misjudge the situation that badly? She knew she couldn’t trust him and yet she still allowed herself to be played like an amateur and now she was going to pay the price. Would he try to kill her now or only ditch her? No, he would wait for her to fall asleep if he wanted to leave, it would be harder for her to follow, it’s going to be a fight. But why did he let her know instead of attacking right away? Was he showing off again?

She waited for his next move, her hands hovering over her right ankle where the blade was hidden, weighting if she should run or stay and try to fight. He just stood there though and was watching her with intent, his stance relaxed and his expression light. Amused even.

“Wait… Is this your idea of a joke?”

He crossed his arms at his chest and shrugged.

“Get the hell out of my sight!” she called after him as he sniggered and walked away towards the pond.

_Fucking space aliens._

**\---**

“That wasn’t even remotely funny, you know,” she said as she approached him, still kneeling by the edge of the water. Judging from his wet hair and shirt he has been performing his head in the water maneuver again.

“Are you able to drink like this?” she asked and sat on her haunches next to him.

_Yes._

“It’s something.”

He nodded again.

“We should start moving soon.”

_Yes._

“Towards the coast, right?”

_Yes._

She was holding a strip of fabric that she tore off the hem of her shirt. It was harder to do than she expected, and she needed to help herself with the knife. A good two inches of her midriff were now exposed, which made her outfit a lot more suitable for the current climate and a lot less comfortable in all the other aspects.

She presented the piece of cloth to Loki. “I got something for you.”

He looked at her and at what she was holding with a frown.

“It’s for your wrist,” she explained, then, after getting no reaction, she urged, “come on, chop, chop, we don’t have all day. Or maybe we do, I have no idea. Anyway…”

He extended both his hands towards her, palms up. He lowered his head. The bow was slight and barely noticeable, but it was there. It added something truly unsettling to the pose, but she wasn’t sure what it was and why it fazed her so much, so she did her best to ignore it. She slid the remaining shackle up his left arm as far as it would go, then started wrapping her makeshift bandage over the bruised, bloodied skin. He narrowed his eyes.

She moved the shackle back to its previous position and let go of his hand. “All done. It shouldn’t rub as badly now.”

He looked down on her work, then up at her and down on his arm again, like he completely refused to understand what she just did.

“Can you stop? You’re being weird,” she said, “and that’s saying something.”

He stared down at his hands for a little longer, then grabbed the cuff that was now freely dangling off his wrist by the chain and clasped it shut on his forearm, just above the other one.

“Uhm, that’s one way to do it,” she muttered.

There was some rationale to that – it wouldn’t be constantly getting in his way and she would not be able to undo the unbinding, even if she wanted to, now that she couldn’t even open it anymore. She did threaten doing just that when they first arrived after all.

_That’s paranoid, even by my standards._

**\---**

“I’m ready,” Natasha announced as she buckled the utility belt loosely around her waist. She has pulled on the bottom half of the uniform but didn’t bother with zipping it all the way up, it was already getting way too hot for that. Loki didn’t deem her outfit worthy even of a single stare that she’d notice, so it either wasn’t infringing on his sophisticated royal tastes or, if it did, he decided to keep it to himself, which worked equally well.

He was raking up the ashes to check if the bonfire was properly extinguished. Right, a stray gust of wind turning their surroundings into a fiery inferno wasn’t anywhere on her wish-list either. She would never say it out loud, but she was damn grateful that at least one of them had an idea how to act in their current situation. Too bad it wasn’t her.

Apparently satisfied with the results of the inspection, he stood up and straightened out his clothes, his hand lingering on his side for a moment.

She started to wonder whether he is not getting hot in his leather pants, but she stopped the thought in its tracks before it went too far. _No, Natasha, this definitely is not what you want to think about now._

Water from the waterfall pool ran off in two directions. A small brook trickled along the foot of the ridge and disappeared between the trees, but the main outlet, wider and carrying more water, ran west in a shallow, rocky valley, creating some open space on its banks. It was not only the more convenient way, it also led where they wanted to go, more likely than not.

Once they left the clearing and started walking through the forest, the scenery wasn’t that much different from yesterday; the trees were similar, the quietness just as overwhelming. And now they had no idea where they were and the result of that initial sweep of the area wasn’t very promising, so the perspective of finding a way out got pushed forth even further. Yet she felt better. Maybe it was because she wasn’t as tired or thirsty or hungry and she got used to the new air a bit better. Or maybe it was because the anxiety connected with Loki’s presence wasn’t firing up on all cylinders constantly anymore. She was also pretty sure she could actually feel the lesser gravity now and it made walking a bit less tiresome too. 

They were moving away from the ridge and soon they stepped out of its shadow. She turned around and hooded her eyes against the sunlight. Only a small segment of the home star showed above the ridgeline, but just from that she could see it wasn’t like Earth’s sun at all. It was at least three times bigger and the light coming from it wasn’t as concentrated or bright, at least for now. And deep orange, almost red, color so intensive it washed the blue away from the sky and painted it gold.

She sighed and turned away, wary not to look directly at the star for too long. Who can say what could happen if she does, even if it didn’t seem to have the same effect as their sun. Her sun.

She expected that the small layover will force her to run to catch up to Loki, but no. He stopped a few steps ahead and waited for her and didn’t even give her an accusatory glare for slowing them down.

“I wonder if I’m the first human to ever set a foot on an alien world,” she said when they matched strides again, just to hear anything other than their footfalls and the murmur of the stream, for a change. The subject seemed causal enough.

Loki shook his head.

“I’m not going to lie, that piqued my interest,” she said lightly, “mainly on a curiosity basis. Because I assume it wasn’t because our space exploration program made some huge leaps when I wasn’t paying attention?”

He just glared at her in response.

“I take there’s a more complicated story there?”

_Yes._

“Remind me to ask you about it some other time then.”

He assessed her for a moment and made a sound that might mean an agreement, then quickly turned away.

“So, human science: zero, magic space portals: two?”

He breathed out a small laugh.

She gave him a smile in return, she didn’t even need to resort to using her acting skills to bring it forth.

It was truly fascinating to see how differently Loki acted now, compared to how he was back on Earth. It wasn’t just about the lack of murder attempts so far, it showed in his attitude, in his expressions, in his body language, even in the way he moved. He used to carry himself like he was above everyone else and the ground beneath his feet was not worthy of bearing his weight, his face always twisted in a mockery of a smile, promising untold terrors. Now, he was light on his feet and his expression defaulted to watchful wariness.

If he kept it up it only meant better chances for her continuous survival, so she wasn’t the one to complain, but it still made her wonder. Was it how he was before the insanity that consumed him took roots in his brain? That would explain why Thor wanted his brother back.

She still hasn’t found a valid reason that would account for that sudden and inexplicable change though. Was it just his survival instincts making him more agreeable or was something affecting the way he acted before? Was the change permanent or should she expect him to slip back into his original, murderous mindset any minute? Would he talk to her if he could?

He might, she figured, for some reason he decided that staying on her good side was to his benefit and she could tell that being unable to speak frustrated him too, maybe even more than being cut away from his powers. Did that also mean he would talk to SHIELD when they started firing their questions at him? Maybe they wouldn’t need to resort to forcing the truth of him out and she was overreacting after all. Now that was an uplifting though, even if the intent was still there and it was all just hypothetical speculations at this point. 

There was probably a lot they could’ve learned from Loki. Not only about the attack, but about Asgard as well. It’s not that Thor wasn’t trying to be helpful and friendly, but he obviously had no notion of sharing crucial intelligence details and their questions mainly just baffled him. And what he did tell them about his home was either cryptic and useless or sounded less like an actual piece of info and suspiciously more like blatant propaganda. She knew how propaganda tasted like, she used to live in the Soviet Union. What’s worse, Thor seemed to believe what he was saying with an unwavering surety and it didn’t fail to tick Natasha off even more.

Loki was at odds with his people, so it wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility he would be willing to share some more in-depth insight about them than those ready-made, prepackaged formularies Thor was so full of. You could only bear hearing how great and golden and infallible Asgard is so many times before it makes you nauseous. Not to mention that it couldn’t be _that_ infallible, if one single guy managed to fuck their shit up so thoroughly, they have yet to fully recover. The fancy bridge thingy – and who’s to say what else – was still non-operational almost a year later. And it seemed like a crucial piece of infrastructure, so she would assume it’s something that would be fixed as soon as possible and without sparing any resources.

Thor claimed that it was the sole reason why Asgard sent only him and not an entire army to stop Loki, but she had a creeping suspicion he was only there because of the personal beef he had to resolve with his brother, and he wouldn’t give two shits otherwise. For a self-proclaimed “sworn protector of the realm”, he didn’t do that much protecting in the past. And the first thing he did after landing was to fight Stark and attempting to murder Rogers. Everyone else seemed to brush that off as a mild and harmless misunderstanding and she was seemingly the only one to see it for what it was. The final blow in that fight in the forest was a killing one, it was only thanks to Cap’s inhuman strength and the unique properties of his shield that they didn’t have to scrape his remains off the ground. 

On the other hand, she wouldn’t put it below Thor to just misjudge the situation terribly. He came to retrieve his brother, found him with mortals who weren’t currently holding a gun to his head and assumed they were allied. She still didn’t like that happy-go-lucky attitude of throwing punches before asking questions but that at least offered some redeeming qualities for his character. He wasn’t a reckless murderer; he was just stupid. And, despite that personal antipathy, she still preferred having him as an ally. Especially after she witnessed what he could do to his actual enemies, at least the ones he didn’t have a soft spot for.

She was also sure that, while it might be the first time they faced an extraterrestrial threat of this magnitude, it wasn’t the last. There was an inherent truth to Fury’s words, they were awfully unprepared. And it was better to have someone like Thor around, even if he was the only Asgardian who cared about what happens to Earth, at least to an extent. It might be that his brief run with Doctor Foster in New Mexico did in fact warm him up to human causes a little. It was yet to be seen, she supposed. Who could say what he was currently up to anyway, maybe he was just midway through a killing spree as a revenge for SHIELD losing his brother?

That gave her an idea. “Hey, is there’s a chance Thor might come looking for you?”

He eyed her inquisitively before shaking his head.

“You think that he wouldn’t? Or that he can’t?”

He put up two fingers. _Oh_.

She wished she could think of a follow-up question to that, but she didn’t even know where to start, as she didn’t have the faintest idea on how their mode of travel worked. She really should’ve done her reading beforehand, although she suspected she wouldn’t be able to understand much of the technical stuff Foster went on about in that dissertation she wrote after her encounter with the Asgardians. Loki’s gaze lingered on Natasha, like he expected her to dwell on the subject, but she stayed quiet, so he looked away, disappointed.

\---

Their road led them out of the woods and onto a more open area, another clearing surrounded by forest on each side. The stream crossed it and disappeared under the wall of greenery. The land was flat, save for a single mound off to the side that stuck out of it like a grassy pimple. She stopped and studied it with interest. It looked like a regular hemisphere, or a sphere half-buried into the ground.

“It looks… man-made,” she said uncertainly. “Artificial.”

Loki crooked his head and looked at the peculiar land feature through narrowed eyes. _Yes._

She didn’t notice anything of sorts from up on the ridge, but it might be they’ve covered enough ground from there to explain that.

“The whole meadow is too perfect to be natural,” she noted. “There’s no reason the trees would just suddenly stop growing here, right?"

He nodded again and started walking towards the hill. They had to check it out, she was with Loki on that, one hundred percent. Her heart started beating rapidly with excitement, so much she almost skipped as she walked.

It had to mean one thing. There was some sort of civilization here. Was or used to be, at least. And it wasn’t the only reason the discovery excited her. The perspective of exploring an abandoned alien ruin spoke to some long-forgotten parts of her imagination, reigniting that plain, childish wonder she didn’t even realize she still possessed. Oh, the possibilities!

The mound was maybe forty or fifty feet wide in diameter and half as tall. Loki approached the almost vertical base, placed his palm against it and held it there for a long moment. He let out a heavy sigh before pulling his hand away.

She started circling the structure, looking for irregularities or openings, but there was nothing of sorts. The walls were even and fully covered with grass and thick, shaggy moss, the same that was growing on the ground beneath her feet. The sphere must’ve been here for quite some time.

By the time she returned to the starting point, Loki has peeled a layer of turf away from the wall and studied the stone underneath.

“Do you know what it is?” she asked, as his slender fingers traced the carvings. The marks were etched deep into the rock, geometrical shapes and lines, too precise and deliberate to be anything but a creation of a sentient being. “Some sort of writing?”

He pulled another strip of sod away from the wall, revealing even more of the pattern. He stepped closer, closed his eyes, and leaned in until his forehead touched the stone. He stayed like this for a while, then his shoulders slumped, he grunted in anger and hit the wall with his fist.

Only then it dawned on her. “It’s something… magical in nature, isn’t it? But you can’t access it. Because your powers aren’t working.”

_Yes._

“Could it be of any help for us?”

He shrugged, but this time it was clear it wasn’t to dismiss her question. He simply didn’t know and his frustration with that fact showed up on his face, as plain as a day.

She wasn’t sure where the urge came from, but she reached to touch the carvings. It’s not like she expected anything to happen, she was just…

She felt a tug, stumbled forward and the world faded into darkness around her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dear academy, I'd like to thank Mr LockPickingLawyer on YT for his invaluable contributions to this piece of literary art.
> 
> This is not meant to be Thor bashing fic. It's just that Natasha doesn't have many reasons to like him at that point. Not only he represent everything that she strives not to be, he is also an indirect reason she is stuck in this mess.


	9. Signs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which our characters have a brush with local ecosystem.

She was in a massive cavern. The floor was black like a night sky and silky-smooth and the walls were so tall they disappeared in a veil of darkness high above her head. She couldn’t see the ceiling or even if there was one.

There was a single source of light, a thin, vertical stripe on the far side of the chamber.

“Hey!” she yelled, “what is this?! Where am I?!”

Her words resonated inside the empty room and returned to her as an echo. There was no answer. She started walking towards the light, it seemed like an obvious direction. Her boots sent ripples across the surface of the floor, like it was covered with a shallow layer of water. She bent down and touched it, but it was solid and slightly warm to the touch.

“Is anyone here?!” she called and again, the echo was the only answer she got.

She kept on moving forward, trying to ignore the twisted knot of fear in her stomach. Was it another nightmare? She didn’t feel like she was sleeping, but she pinched her arm just to be sure anyway. It hurt, but it didn’t exactly present her with an indisputable answer.

And where was Loki? Was this some trick of his?

 _No_ , she decided. She touched that stone willingly, after he basically told her it has something to do with magic and he doesn’t know what it is. That was kind of dumb of her, wasn’t it?

The light was so bright she couldn’t see the outline of the opening it came from clearly and when she looked directly at it her vision grew blurry and her eyes started to prickle.

She wasn’t sure how long it took her to get to the opposite side of the cavern, it felt both like forever and like no time has passed at all. Maybe time was not even a concept that existed in this place. The slit was just a few steps ahead and looking at it for longer than a second made her eyes teary, so she didn’t. The insides of her eyelids still burned red. She marched forward with her hands extended in front of her. One more step and her fingers touched the surface. It was warm, like the floor, but not hot. It seemed to vibrate lightly.

“YOU CAME,” a voice boomed, and she startled. 

She was getting the meaning even if the words were not in a language she knew. It wasn’t a language at all, as they were not even were not spoken. They just seemed to appear in her head as images. Pure concepts. Still loud though.

The bright red on her eyelids lessened and she opened her eyes.

There was a figure in front of her, sort of. Its outline was vaguely humanoid in shape, but taller and lankier. It was not made of flesh, but of pure light, the form wavery and blurred at the edges, incorporeal but very obviously _there_ at the same time. It pulsed and changed as she looked at it, the colors fluctuating between different hues of the light spectrum.

“What do you want from me?! Who are you? What is this place?”

“You are greedy with your questions for someone who is invading our world,” the spectral projected. There was no emotion carried with the words, yet the meaning itself managed to tighten the knot of anxiety in her stomach. 

“I’m not… invading, I just got lost.” And whatever this thing was, it needed to learn a lot about what an actual invasion looks like.

“It is of no significance for the final outcome.”

“I can’t help it that you don’t see the difference. And believe me, I intend to spend no minute more here than I have too.”

The phantom wavered and faded at the edges then shifted position. It wasn’t a fluid movement, it just disappeared from one place and appeared in another, instantly. The creature’s face, or rather the part of its body where the face was supposed to be, was just inches from hers. Natasha reached for the gun on her right hip, out of pure instinct, but her hand passed through thin air instead. It wasn’t there. She ignored the sinking feeling in her stomach and braced, standing her ground.

“There are things we want to show you,” the voice said. Another blink of an eye, and the phantom fingers were wrapped around her wrist. She tried pulling away, gently at first, but her arm could be embedded in stone just as well.

“Let me go,” she snarled and tried jerking her hand away one more time. It made no difference. “Let go of me!”

Creature’s other hand was around her throat now. It wasn’t squeezing, but it still held her in an iron grip. Her skin felt hot where the being touched her, and the more she struggled, the more intensive the heat got, and soon her nerves started to fire in pain.

“We need you to _understand_ ,” the voice in her head insisted.

She tried responding, saying something, anything, but she couldn’t get it around the lump in her throat, so she only made a pained whimper. The grip didn’t lessen.

Suddenly, she felt something cold on her face. She instinctively reached with her free hand to check but found nothing. It felt weird, like something was and wasn’t there at the same time. She focused on the sensation, if just to get her mind off all the burning.

The gravity shifted and the light faded. Her eyes fluttered open. Loki pulled his hand away from her forehead as soon as they did, but still looked down at her with a deep, anxious frown. She was laying on the ground, she realized, and Loki was kneeling next to her. They were a few steps from the wall, so he probably dragged her away.

She could still feel the aftersensation of the searing pain on her skin, but when she looked at her hand there was no mark left on it, like nothing has ever happened. “What the hell was that…” she breathed. “You did that to me?”

He shot her an offended glare and shook his head.

“That’s what I thought.” She sat up and had to support herself with her arms to not go back down. She realized she was shaking. “You saw what happened? What I saw?”

She wasn’t sure how that would be possible, but the entirety of the last couple of days sat snugly in the “impossible” drawer and yet here they were, so it was reasonable to ask.

_No._

“So, I was here all the time from your perspective?” she made sure.

 _Yes,_ he nodded and raised an eyebrow.

“Because from mine, I wasn’t. I was… in some sort of a cave, I think. Or a huge room. It’s hard to tell. And there was someone there.” She placed her fingers on her temples. “I’ve been having nightmares since we came here. Someone was calling me in those dreams, telling me to ‘find them’. I didn’t think much of it, I thought it’s just because I’m stressed or tired or because the air is so different. But I guess it was more than that. And I think I’ve just met the same someone in there.”

Loki gestured her to go on and she told him the rest. When she got to the present, he looked at her with a pensive expression.

“You had dreams or visions like this here?”

_No._

“But it has to have something to do with magic, right?”

 _Yes_ , he nodded, but not without hesitation.

“Well, in case you didn’t notice by now, I’m not a space wizard. I have never experienced anything… supernatural before. I get that you weren’t affected because of… you know, but do you have any idea why this happens to me?”

 _No._ There was this pissed off expression on his face again. He apparently hated not knowing things.

She rubbed her eyes. “I’m sorry, but the rest of this talk has to wait,” she sighed. “As much as I would love to learn more, I can’t really think of any good question.”

She tried standing up. She felt a surge of vertigo and her knees buckled. Loki grabbed her arm and held her up before she hit the ground. She took a couple of deep breaths and the dizziness slowly bled away.

“You can let go of me now,” she said softly, and he did. He still stayed close and eyed her with suspicion, like she was about to collapse any second. She decided to excuse him that one little infraction, after all, she did lose consciousness and then almost fainted again just a second ago.

“Is there anything more we can try to do about this?” she asked and pointed at the structure. “I mean, besides me touching it again, I don’t feel like that was a good idea even the first time around.”

Loki frowned and pointed towards the top of the sphere.

“You want to see it from above?”

_Yes._

“You think there could be an something there? Like an entrance?”

He shrugged.

“Yeah, sure, why not.”

He pointed at the exposed part of the wall.

“Yes, I know. I just told you, I will not touch it. I’m not stupid.”

He pointed at her and then at the ground.

“No, I’m not staying here. I want to see too.” Who the hell can tell what he would find? It could be dangerous, or it could be something to take them out of here too, and she was not going to let Loki get all the credit. He gave her a dramatic eyeroll, she smiled sweetly in return.

He took a small run-up, bounced, and landed on the wall a good six feet off the ground, held onto the grass and started climbing. She couldn’t hope to do so with so much grace and there was no way she could jump that high without something to boost herself off from even on a better day, so she just resorted to the traditional way of grabbing onto promising bunches of grass, finding a support for her feet, and then pulling herself up. She was wary not to touch the stone underneath, but the layer of turf was thick, so – as long as she didn’t tear any away – she should be fine.

The first few steps were the hardest. The higher she got, the less vertical and more level the surface was and soon she was crawling on all fours on the top of the dome. She looked up. Loki was already at the fulcrum and his stare was positively mocking. He still offered her a hand and she accepted.

“Well, that’s anticlimactic,” she complained after she took a look around and found nothing but the same even cover of grass and moss like on the sides. “I should’ve stayed down like you told me.”

The top of the dome wasn’t exactly the highest point of the landscape, but it was removed far enough from the surrounding trees to still offer a decent vantage point. Loki was looking off into the distance, his eyes squinted and his expression calculating.

“What?” she asked and looked in the same direction. “Is that… smoke?”

Loki furrowed his brows and nodded. Indeed, there was something like a tiny cloud of light gray smoke rising above the forest to the northwest, a couple hundred yards away at least, but it was hard to tell.

“Uhm. We should go there… like, right now,” she said.

Loki gave her a quick nod, turned, half ran, half slid down the slope till it got too steep, then covered the rest of the way with a leap. She took one more look at the smoke to commit the azimuth to her memory and followed.

\---

The forest looked just about the same as before, but without the path the stream created, getting through was tricky, especially at a running speed. She put all her strength into the sprint until her muscles screamed in protest, but Loki was still considerably faster and soon she lost the sight of him, only the trail of trampled greenery telling her which way he went. She should be worried, she knew, but the fear of being abandoned that blossomed so fervently before somehow failed to trigger. The sooner one of them got to the location the smoke came from, the higher the chance of finding whatever – or whoever – was the source still in place. So she wiped away the sweat off her forehead, gritted her teeth trying to ignore the vines and branches slashing at her face and arms and just ran.

The chase uncomfortably reminded her of that first nightmare. The partially faded memory was suddenly a lot more disturbing, now that she knew it was something truly chasing her there and not just some musings of her idle brain. There was no mist on the ground though.

After a few minutes she ran completely out of breath and had to slow down to a strut. It didn’t matter, she figured. Loki would find whatever there was to find and she would catch up to him, sooner or later; he wasn’t exactly hiding his tracks.

Another couple of minutes passed and she started to wonder. They were running blindly through the forest, maybe they’ve ran right past whatever they were looking for? She wasn’t sure what she was expecting, but some sort of an opening probably, maybe even a small settlement of sorts; no sentient being would be lighting a fire in the middle of the forest even on Earth and more so here, and if it was a natural occurrence it would either burn a lot more spectacularly with all the wood around or require some open area as well. But she saw nothing like this, only trees and bushes as far as her eyes reached, in every direction.

A while later the suspicion turned into surety. They definitely missed something, and Loki figured it out as well, because his trail no longer led straight ahead but started to meander. He also wasn’t running anymore, because it was much harder to follow. She could still see some broken twigs and smushed leaves here and there, but if she wasn’t careful, they might actually lose each other. That would be disastrous, even if quite comical, in a thoroughly ironic way. And Loki couldn’t even answer if she called out. She needed to find him, pronto, and be more mindful to not put herself in a similar situation in the future.

She stepped around a tree and stopped, looking for further hints on which way Loki went, but couldn’t see anything obvious. A brush on her left side looked like it could’ve been disturbed, but maybe it just grew like that on its own. _Well, fuck._ She would just have to check one way and backtrack if needed, which wasn’t ideal, but it was at least some sort of a plan. She propped herself up against the trunk, catching her breath. Her shoulder brushed against something, there was a muffled pop and the air filled with gray dust. She jumped away and covered her mouth with her hand.

The trunk of the tree was covered with some sort of growths, tan, spherical in shape, with small pinkish brushes at the top, varying in size from as small as her thumb to a fist-sized ones. She looked up. They were all over the bark, until the trunk thinned off and disappeared in the canopy. The color of the leaves here wasn’t as vivid as she was used to by now, it was dulled with tones of brown and gray. There were similar shrooms growing on the other trees as well, some as big as melons, high up between the branches. It looked… wrong, like it was some sort of blight that slowly consumed the forest. Just the sight itself tingled in her stomach uncomfortably.

She stroked one of the bulbs with a twig. It exploded, spewing a load of spores into the air; the cloud it formed slowly drifted upwards and dissipated among the branches. _Oh_.

The excitement that was buzzing in her brain immediately died out, like with a flip of a switch, replaced with a bitter taste of disappointment, the change so sudden it almost felt like a physical jolt.

There was a rustle and Loki stepped out from between the brushes. She didn’t even need to ask, his expression made it painfully clear that he figured it out as well.

“Yeah,” she said, “I guess we got excited over nothing.”

Loki just sighed.

“On the bright side,” she added, “we didn’t lose each other in the forest at least. And you’re quite a runner, so I wouldn’t be able to catch up if you kept on going for much longer.”

He looked at her with something that might be a sad smile, if she used her imagination.

There was a twig stuck in his hair, most likely a souvenir from his wild run through the trees. Without much thinking, she reached to take it off. Maybe a tad too quickly. He flinched and jerked away before he regained the control over his reactions. Her hand dropped immediately. He glared at her, his eyes cold as steel.

“Uhm, you have a stick…” she said and pointed at the side of his head, “there.” Wow, she was outdoing herself with eloquence today. 

He sighed again before getting the twig out and tossing it away, with a lot more force than the action required. She caught him off guard and he apparently wasn’t pleased with that.

Something told her that acknowledging the matter would make it even worse, so she didn’t.

“Can we go back to the clearing and rest for a while?” she asked. “I feel like we’ve been going for a whole day already. Earth’s day, I mean.” The sun was still on the eastern side of the sky as far as she could tell, but her biological clock was not adjusted to the change yet and required a rest; she knew better than to push it, again, if she wanted to be able to keep on going.

Loki didn’t answer, just turned and went the way they came from.

Oh well, nobody said it would be easy.

\---

They made the whole way back to the plain without her speaking a word. She tried to think of nothing, to ease herself into the routine of walking yet again, but she couldn’t stop her mind from going back to Loki’s unconscious reaction. It was a minor, benign thing and she couldn’t say for sure why it stood out so much among other things he’s done. It shouldn’t. Saying Loki had issues was like standing in the middle of a hurricane and calling it a light breeze. She should expect all sort of irrational responses from him, right? And this one was just another puzzle piece for the jigsaw she had no box with an illustration for.

The thing was, there was a pattern there and, as much as she tried to make it work, it didn’t add up with what she thought she already knew about him, from _before_ , even if that knowledge was a lot scarcer than she’d wish. And sure, she was getting better at reading his reactions, but it would all go so much smoother if she could actually predict correctly what he would do before he did it any given time. She was learning, but it was going slowly, because she was missing some crucial information and she couldn’t even begin to extrapolate it from the data she had. 

As far as their rudimentary plan went, there was nothing more to do than just survive, move forward, one step at a time, and hope for the best. And figuring out what made Loki tick was a better side project than just allowing her mind to run circles around things she couldn’t hope to change. Yeah, that was a solid plan of action. She would get to the bottom of this. Now she only had to get him to _talk_.

\---

“You want to take the first turn?” she asked.

They settled on the stream bank. There was a couple of bigger boulders here, flat-topped and reaching up to her knees, forming a semi-regular circle. She couldn’t be sure whether it was some part of the site or if those just happened to find their way here naturally, but she still refrained from touching them, just in case, and sat down on the ground.

Loki eyed her questioningly. He had no similar reservations because he was leaning on one of the rocks.

“To sleep,” she explained. “I was the last to rest, so now it’s your turn, technically speaking. But I’m not sure how it is for you. I noticed you can stay awake longer, but I don’t know if it was because of necessity or if that’s the way your activity schedule works.”

His shoulder twitched, just barely. “No, don’t give me that,” she said, before he could even finish the gesture. “We are working together, remember? This is not a test, nor a game. I’m just asking a simple question and the answer shouldn’t really be that hard to come up with. So, do you want to take the first turn?”

He frowned at her, that pensive, probing look back on his face.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake…”

Only then he nodded, slowly, and looked down, like that admission was something to be ashamed of. _Light breeze_ , _yeah, totally_. She bit her tongue to not comment, but still filed the reaction into its designated folder. “Weird Loki things” it was called, and it contained most of the last couple of days.

He lay down on his back, folded his arms under his head, and closed his eyes. She watched him, partially because she was adamant on sticking to her newly hatched plan, partially because there wasn’t much else to do and there was rarely a better opportunity to stare than the moment he couldn’t catch her doing it. He stayed motionless, only his chest rose and fell in an even tempo.

A good while has passed, the sun moved up across the sky and the air grew uncomfortably hot again. The rhythm of Loki’s breathing didn’t change.

“You’re not sleeping, are you?” she asked.

He let out a huff of air and nudged his head to the side ever so slightly but didn’t change his position or even opened his eyes.

“I’ve been thinking,” she started, carefully weighting her words, “that finding someone, or something, to help us get out of here… It may take a while. And it would be great if you had some better way of communication than writing. It has proven problematic so far.”

That got him to turn his head and look at her.

“We have this thing, on Earth. It’s called a sign language,” she said. “I don’t know if you’ve heard of it.”

His expression suggested that he might, but he still shook his head. He probably didn’t know more than the core concept, if that.

“It uses manual cues and symbols to convey the meaning. Its main purpose is allowing the deaf and hard of hearing people to communicate,” she explained, “but I think it could be useful in your _current situation_ as well.”

The frown on his face only deepened.

“There are many different versions. I know some basics of one of the variants. ASL, as in the American Sign Language, but I guess it doesn’t really matter which one it is for our purpose,” she said. The “basics” part was a major understatement, but they would most likely not need more than the most common signs. There was no point in telling Loki more than he needed to know and by doing so putting herself in a position where she’d have to explain why she had that knowledge. “I can teach you, if you want to learn.”

He bolted to a sitting position and nodded, with a dose of enthusiasm that almost startled her. She expected it would take a lot more convincing for him to lower himself to learn some primitive _mortal_ language. That’s why she dismissed it earlier, even if the idea popped into her head almost immediately. She didn’t think it would be worth the hassle, then. And he didn’t have full use of his hands, unlike now.

“I’m not sure if your magic lingo doodad would cover it,” she carried on, “but even if it did, I’d assume you’d still have to learn the motions. Unless you have a way around that law of nature as well.”

_No._

“Well, that’s a shame,” she said, but without much disappointment in her tone. It wasn’t like she expected a confirmation here. “We can start now, if you’re not going to sleep,” she said and put both her hands up, knuckles out, thumbs and pinkies extended, then brought them down. “That’s the sign for ‘now’. Or we could do that _later_ ,” she added, showing him the gesture.

 _[Now,]_ Loki showed. And wow, his observation skill was really something else, because he got it just right on the first try.

“Fine,” she said with a chuckle. “There are a couple of angles from which you can approach learning it, but since you already know the spoken language and its notation, it would be the easiest to start with fingerspelling, so you won’t be limited with the choice of signs you have as much.”

He nodded. She didn’t even have to explain what fingerspelling is, he seemed to get it from the context.

“Actually, nods and head shakes have their purpose in the language, there’re separate signs for _yes_ and _no_ ,” she explained, showing him the respective gestures. “There’s also a sign for _okay_ , or approval in general.”

_[Okay.]_

She tallied each letter of the alphabet and showed him the signs. He copied her movement after each motion, then, unprompted, went through the entire list, in the same order she did and then backwards. She then showed him some signs for the stuff in their immediate surroundings, like air and sun and water and trees and even threw in the alternative meanings where applicable. He took it all in swimmingly.

It was really kind of amazing and somewhat bordering scary, how fast he picked it up. He needed to be presented with each sign exactly _once_ , before he could mimic and use it, without miss, and the only issue he had was with those that required him to bend his left wrist, where the shackle restricted his movement. Even with that, it was still well understandable. She wondered whether it was thanks to that mysterious Asgardian magic, or if it was a different sort of an innate gift and she just didn’t give his intelligence enough credit. It was yet to be seen how much of it was going to get retained in his long-term memory, but it still instilled her with optimism.

They moved on to Loki spelling the words he wanted to know and her showing him the signs. Some of them were obvious in their purpose, like “sleep” and “food” and basic verbs and adjectives, but others gave her a pause, like “spell”, or “dream”, or “space”, or names for body parts and she couldn’t help but ponder on what exactly was the topic of the hypothetical conversation he wanted to have with those.

“I’m sorry, but I’m going to put you on hold here,” she said when he started on another word just a second after she showed him the sign for “find”. “I don’t want to sound whiny, but I would appreciate if we moved closer to the trees. Or any place that would offer at least a sliver of shadow to hide in.”

The sun was now in zenith and it was flogging the landscape with an almost unsurmountable intensity. The skin on her back and shoulders started to prickle and she would get a major sunburn if that continued. Loki probably shouldn’t stay out in the sun either, as pale as he was, although she was sure he would rather suffer a sunstroke than admit that, judging from how prissy he got when she asked if he wanted to sleep.

 _[Okay,]_ he said, showed the signs for “us” and “go” and rose to his feet. She couldn’t help but to smile.

“Oh, this is so much better!” she exclaimed, as she sunk down on the bushy grass in the shade of a massive not-acacia, just at the edge of the jungle. “I’m not letting you pick a spot for a camp ever again.”

 _[Your loss,]_ he said, spelling the second word.

She showed him the motion. “It can also mean ‘to lose’ as in ‘to misplace’. There’s a separate sign for _defeat_.”

His eyes lingered on her for a moment, wide and wild, then he let out a long, ragged breath and his expression turned hard. She didn’t mean to remind him of _that_ , but it was apparently her outcome anyway. 

“You want to take a break?” she asked, tentatively, after a moment of silence. “I’m not going to lie; I could use some shut-eye and you’ve clearly decided on misusing your turn.”

_[One more.]_

“Okay. What is it that you want to know?”

 _[Sorry,]_ his hands spelled.

She glowered at him. He held her gaze, his manner still hard. Determined. Was he trying to trick her into apologizing for making him remember his failure?

She curled her hand into a fist, put it against her chest and moved it in a circular motion. “It means ‘to apologize’, you can figure out the rest.”

He still looked her in the eyes, but his face softened into that maybe-regret sorrowful look. He pointed at himself and repeated her moves. Then he let himself fall backwards into a lying position with a heavy sigh and she could see his face no longer.

_Oh boy._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here we go, one of the major causes for this piece of… work’s existence. I wanted to try writing characters using sign language since I’ve started learning one, then I wrote myself into a corner that I spend the rest of the fic wriggling out of, but oh well. 
> 
> I’ve spent a lot of time deliberating on what should I do with ASL notations and grammar. I settled on this format, where I basically use brackets instead of quotation marks (for distinction) and note it down like a regular dialogue beyond that. 
> 
> This is not how syntax works in ASL but I decided it would be almost impossible or at least extremely inconvenient to read in the long run if I kept it as is (plus my knowledge of ASL is quite rudimentary as I’m more familiar with our regional variant that is more abstract and has completely different grammatical rules, so I would probably just offend a lot more people with mistakes). Just think about it as if it was a translation from a whole different language, because that’s basically what ASL (or any other sign language) is at the core, and translations don’t need to be super-precise to be understandable. What you’re reading is an interpretation, as Natasha reads it in her brain and the exact vocabulary is affected by her perception of how Loki would speak, from the samples she got to hear (that will get more apparent later). 
> 
> If you disagree or if this approach offends you, please do let me know. I mean it. I’ll try doing something about it, if not now, then in the future. 
> 
> BTW, there’s no mention of voiced communication in the etymology of “say” so I use it amply in dialogue tags for sign language, for the lack of a better alternative, basically.


	10. Tremors

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which multiple things shatter and break.

“No. No, no, no, no. No! I’m not doing this again!” she yelled.

She was in the cavern again. The light on the other side was glinting at her, inviting.

She sat down on the floor, cross-legged, facing away from it. “No.”

It was a strange feeling, to be dreaming and knowing it’s a dream. She’s heard some people experienced that and that the awareness made them able to manipulate the world their idle brains produced. She closed her eyes and imagined herself feeding the ducks by the Morningside Pond.

It didn’t work. But then again, it wasn’t a regular dream.

She could see a blurred reflection of the beacon on the wall she was facing, her silhouette casting a shadow against it. The outline grew larger and larger, until she couldn’t take the uncertainty anymore and she turned. She was close to the source again, despite not moving an inch. She squinted her eyes against the brightness and ignored how it burned her retinas. It’s not true and it won’t be able to hurt her for real, even if the pain felt like anything but imaginary.

The light condensed into an already familiar contour.

She refused the urge to rise, refused to acknowledge the existence of the being at all.

“You ran.”

She shrugged and the motion made her think of Loki. Could he wake her up this time as well? Would he even know she was stuck in a nightmare again? Probably not.

The spectral blinked out and back into existence and was now hovering above her, its hands inches above her head.

“I am not afraid of you,” Natasha lied and kept her voice from getting frilly at the edges. “You have no power over me.”

“It is not a question of power, child,” the thing projected, straight into her thoughts. There was a shift and spectral hands were touching her temples, the touch only warm but still reminding her vividly of the scathing pain from the previous time.

She didn’t allow herself to move. She wouldn’t struggle this time. It would only make it worse. She just had to wait it out. It’s only until she wakes.

“We can stay here as long as we wish,” the spectral said, like sensing her thoughts. Maybe it did. “Until you listen.”

The touch started burning again. _It’s so not fair_ , she though and gritted her teeth. _You can’t make rules and then change them as you see fit_.

“It is not us who made the rules.”

It _could_ read her mind.

It made her feel violated, like no physical harm ever could. She recoiled and tried pulling away, all her hardened resolution gone in an instant. It only made the touch hurt even more. Her brain was burning like it was set ablaze, the fire chasing all coherent thought away. She squeezed her eyes shut and felt tears of pain rolling down her cheeks and they burned as well, like salt on an open wound.

She raised her hands, clasped them around the wrists of the creature, desperately trying to pull them away, but only achieved having her palms burned and when she tried jerking away, she couldn’t anymore.

She yearned for that cold, cold touch to appear again, if only to ease the pain for a moment, to give her that momentary respite. “Please,” she whispered, “help me.” She knew he couldn’t hear her, not here, but she still did, because that was the only thing she _could_ do. She couldn’t play a game she had no rulebook for, and every move was a losing one.

And there it was again, although she wasn’t sure if she didn’t imagine it after all, wished it into existence. She still focused on it, held onto it, the only thin thread that kept her from drowning in the ocean of fire.

The layers of the dream peeled away, and she woke up with a gasp.

She would never have thought there would come a time when she’s happy to see Loki’s face, but there she was. Well, it beat the alternative, at least. Like before, he pulled his hand away immediately after she came to. And maybe it was the twilight playing tricks on her shaky mind, but this time she recognized the emotion in his features. It wasn’t annoyance or anger. It was worry, even if it evaporated quickly. It was more disconcerting than the two other options, if for a different reason.

“Thank you,” she rasped and hid her face in her hands. She kept her eyes opened though, as if closing them would be enough to plunge her back into the nightmare. There were tears on her cheeks. She wiped them away. Did that mean… “Could you… hear me?”

_[Yes.]_

She let out a puff of air and rubbed her face again. So, he’s heard her moaning and begging. Great, just great. “That thing… it told me it can keep me there, as long as it wants to, and the time doesn’t work there like it should, so… I didn’t know what else to do.”

He blinked at her, his eyebrows raised.

“I’ll tell you what exactly happened, but give me a moment, okay?” she said. “I need to… calm down first.”

_[Okay.]_

“The dream… It felt like a just brief moment,” she sighed. She still felt tired. How is she supposed to go on if she couldn’t even rest without dealing with that shit? “And yet it’s dawning already.”

 _[No. Look,]_ Loki said and pointed at the sky.

She did. Their planet-moon was up on the sky again, blocking the sun so only a sliver of it showed over its rim. She stared in awe. “I could get used to that view.”

A pained spasm crossed Loki’s face like a shadow, before he worked to control it.

“Yeah, you’re right. Be careful what you wish for, and all that jazz,” she said.

They watched the partial eclipse in silence for a few moments. The trajectory of the planet was not aligned with the sun’s, so it didn’t look like it’s going to completely disappear and bathe the world in darkness. At least this time.

“I’ve been meaning to ask you,” she said, after she was able to pull her eyes from the sight. “If it was completely random – us landing here, I mean – how come we ended up in a relatively nice place, with breathable air and all? I’d guess the void of space or the center of some star was a way more likely outcome, as far as the odds go.”

_[Roads are made. Life needs air.]_

“No one ever travels to uninhabitable places? Like, for resources or something?”

 _[Sometimes,]_ he spelled after some hesitation and looked at her tentatively.

“Sometimes,” she repeated in a dull voice, showing him the sign. “So, it _was_ luck, even if it wasn’t truly _random_.”

_[Yes.]_

_What were you thinking?_ she wanted to ask, but she remembered the fear on his face, back on the jet, and reconsidered. He wasn’t thinking at all. His primal instincts fired, and he ran, taking the only opportunity he saw. Forcing him now to admit that wouldn’t achieve anything besides making him angry.

“You also said… how did it go? That we jumped? Switched paths?”

_[Yes.]_

“I assume it was deliberate?”

_[Yes.]_

“You knew where the portal led,” she said, not actually asking, “and you didn’t want to go there.”

_[Yes.]_

“Where did it go?”

 _[Not a nice place,]_ he showed and something in his expression stopped her from digging deeper.

\---

They set off soon after. She knew she won’t be able to sleep anyway and it seemed that Loki lost his interest in that too, so there was no point in wasting daylight. The planet has moved, and the sun was visible in full again as it rolled across the sky towards the west, guiding them in their path.

It meant that the rotations for their moon and the home planet were not synchronized, but when she tried visualizing how it worked, she only succeeded at making her head hurt. She could ask Loki; he probably had more precise explanations to offer.

And it looked like it won’t be long before he’d be able to give them. Within just a few hours, he learned how to put together simple sentences, using the signs he had, using spelling to fill in the blanks and extrapolating the rules to get the meaning across. And sure, he could hear and knew the spoken language, so the process was easier for him, but it was still more than most people could achieve in _months_. She doubted the claims about the superiority of the Asgardian race before. Thor was strong, and old, but he was kind of a moron too. This, well, this made her reconsider.

It also made her wonder what fatal flaw made Loki that bad of a strategist. He clearly wasn’t lacking in the brains department, yet his plan of attack was a dumpster fire, to put it mildly. It only got as far as it did because the Avengers were busy fighting among each other. Which, to be fair, was the outcome he was going for, but it was a subprime stock to bet on and it was a miracle it worked out as well – or badly, depending on who’s asking – as it did. The whole “getting captured” stunt was convoluted and a very low reward, extremely high risk move, that – even after it succeeded to an extent – still put him further away from victory. 

And why go for New York at all? It was a high-profile target, sure, and using Stark’s power source was a decent effort as far as dick measuring competitions go, but there were a lot of better objectives when one wanted to deal a real blow. Killing civilians and knocking over a couple of buildings is not going to chip away at US military power, it only makes the government keener on unleashing its full extent on you. One didn’t even need to go that far into US history to figure that one out.

The SHIELD’s base was a way more reasonable target for what it housed, but its destruction was a fluke and not a deliberate action on Loki’s side, at least according to the preliminary reports she saw. It was SHIELD’s own machinery that overloaded and blew the facility up when the Tesseract fully activated. And it was exactly the thing they were working to achieve, so it was basically just pure luck that they didn’t fuck themselves over before, without any external interference. Main surge breakers didn’t trigger, backup emergency switches either failed or weren’t sufficient and there were no security protocols for the total destruction of the core, so that only made collateral damage control and evac ops more of a nightmare. And maybe Loki planned to use those flaws as he did, but it was, again, a very unsafe bet; another fiasco that was easily preventable on their side, if only they weren’t as awfully unaware of what power they were actually dealing with as they were.

It was not that bad, that it all turned out the way it did, all things considered, even if the death toll and damage was still substantial. She couldn’t help but shiver at the thought of what could happen if Loki really thought things through. Opening the portal elsewhere and regrouping before attacking, so his army could strike at full force and not at however many could come through the portal at a time. Using the staff’s dreadful mind control powers on people that actually mattered. Hell, that alone could mean a total defeat for humanity, even without the Chitauri in the picture, especially if carried out with sufficient secrecy. So yeah, she was not complaining, even if she found how easy he made it for them surprising in hindsight.

Would he do things differently, now, that he was obviously thinking more clearly than before? Would he be able to go further and do more damage? Or would that make him more open to negotiations? Could he be talked into surrendering after Germany, before things went really downhill? How would their conversation on the Helicarrier go?

What-ifs. That’s all what it was. She was here and so was Loki and there was no changing the past, for better, or for worse.

 _I’m sorry_ , said Loki in her memory, once again. What exactly was he _sorry_ for? Was it a blanket statement, meant to cover everything he did so far, or did he mean any specific thing? Was he just fucking with her? Or did he figure that playing the remorse card would get him off the naughty list? Why would he even care? She was open to collaboration either way, if only for the lack of other options, and she was being as transparent as humanly possible about that. He should’ve caught up to that already.

There was movement in the corner of her eye. Loki was waving his hand at her, and, judging from his face, he must’ve been at it on for quite some time.

“What?”

_[Another lesson?]_

“Sure, why not,” she chuckled.

Loki’s eyes brightened up. It wasn’t that bad of a sight, she decided.

\---

Walking was a lot slower when they had to look at one another and not where they were going, but she couldn’t hold it against him. Not when she saw how eager he was to have at least some sort of workaround for his predicament.

By the evening Loki got to the point in which she had to go into more advanced concepts, like tenses and plurals and possessives to answer his inquiries, and again, he took it all like a champ. She also switched to signing when speaking, he was catching it all so rapidly that she assumed he would be able to get a lot from context too and that wager also paid off. She was rusty at first, but soon she fell back into a familiar groove and it went a lot smoother.

She wasn’t sure at which point they moved from him supplying words and her providing translations to actually talking, it was going on for a while before she noticed.

And it was nice, to be able to hold a real, if basic, conversation. She was never much of a people’s person, but she wasn’t a completely withdrawn introvert either and she could find enjoyment in human interactions. That worked better if the other person could answer. And it turned out that the “human” part was optional.

_[The dream. Tell me.]_

She did.

 _[The rules?]_ he asked when she got to that part.

“Yeah, that got me thinking as well. If the thing says it’s not ‘theirs’ then whose?”

_[I don’t know.]_

“I figured you wouldn’t,” she said, a dark edge sneaking into her tone.

_[It is your head.]_

She blinked. “Are you suggesting… But if I’m the one to control what happens, then why are they able to hurt me?”

 _[I don’t know,]_ he said again, his eyebrows drawn. _[You called me, it worked.]_

 _Hmm._ There was a disturbing implication there that she would rather not discuss with Loki, or with anyone for that matter; she couldn’t even tell if he was going for it specifically or it just turned out this way. “I tried imagining myself elsewhere, away from that place.” _Home_. “It didn’t work.”

_[Wrong way?]_

“Maybe. But I don’t know what else I could try to change.”

_[Not the place. You.]_

“Myself? Into what?”

_[A thing that does not burn?]_

She chortled at that. On the other hand, there was a simple yet coherent logic there, as much as you could apply logic to spectral beings that haunt your dreams.

“I guess I’ll have to try that it if it happens again,” she said, “but most of all I hope it won’t.”

 _I wouldn’t count on that_ , Loki’s expression said, but he didn’t comment. He didn’t have to; she knew that already.

\---

“I think we should stop. I can barely see a thing and I’ve really had enough of falling into unseen holes for the week,” she said.

She could also feel the tiredness creeping into her legs from the long hours of marching. She was used to exercise, but the last couple of days were pushing it a bit too far and it’s been too long since she has last eaten. Loki’s stance didn’t exactly show he was tired, but his inquires and answers grew rarer and further between and he mostly walked with his head down for the last half an hour or so, so some rest wouldn’t hurt him either.

She was hoping they would find an open area for this night too, so they could have the light of a fire to disperse the dark, but their luck in that field has apparently ran out. The sun has already set, and that faint afterglow was the only thing lighting their way, so it was not the time to be picky.

 _[Okay,]_ Loki signed, then added, _[no fire.]_ At least she suspected that was what he was saying. His moves got so fast and efficient by that point that she occasionally had issues with catching all the signs he was showing, and she couldn’t rely on lip reading to fill in the gaps; it got even worse in the waning light. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction by asking him to repeat though, at least not until it seemed like something crucial. She would get used to his pace soon enough, she was sure.

“Yeah, I know. No fire, I get it.”

They settled between two trees, right at the edge of the small valley. The ground here was covered with a thick tangle of soft moss and grass, so it was not that bad of a place for a camp, all things considered. She sat with her back to a tree, Loki picked a spot two steps away and seated himself as well, his palm pressed to the side of his abdomen. She noticed him doing that before, but only now the hint of a pained wince got her to pay attention. She wasn’t sure if it wasn’t there earlier or if she just got better at catching those little glimpses though.

“Are you all right?”

He pulled his hand away and rested it on his knee, then nodded, his real face already hidden behind that engineered, neutral mask. What was it? Some sort of injury he got here? Earlier, on the jet? Or was it an unhealed wound from the Hulk or from the battle?

“You want me to take a look?” she asked. She wasn’t sure what she could to do to help, but it couldn’t get matters worse at least.

_[No. I am good.]_

“You sure?”

 _[Yes,]_ he gestured and turned his head, effectively ending the discussion.

They sat in silence for a while.

“You can go to sleep, you know,” she said, “I don’t think I’m ready for an encore that soon.”

He breathed out an irritated huff, but lay down all the same, his back to her.

She sat in the deepening darkness, listening. Well, if it was an internal injury Loki was harboring, his lungs were fine at least, as far as she could tell from his breathing. And he was going for days before she even noticed, it mustn’t be that serious, right?

 _Why do I even care?_ she wondered. _Oh right, I need him alive to get home_.

That was definitely the only reason.

\---

She kept her eyes open. That at least kept the creeping nightmares at bay, even if it made no difference for her awareness of the surroundings. The world around her was a point-blank darkness, and only the patches of stars she could see between the branches above her head destroyed the illusion she was floating in a completely lightless, empty void, even if not even a bit of their light reached the ground.

The pattern of sounds changed and pulled her out of idle musings about her future and how far away from home she was. At first it was only Loki’s breathing quickening, until he was taking in rapid, ragged gasps.

Then came a pained guttural gurgle. She startled. Some rustling and rattling followed.

“Loki?” she whispered at the darkness, but a muffled yelp was all she got as a response. “Loki!”

She crawled over to where she knew he was and felt around with her hand until she got a hold of his shoulder. His muscles were tense, he was shaking and there were tremors running through his body. He jerked away.

She reached to her belt and pulled out the little flashlight, praying it’s still working. She fumbled, trying to find the switch with her finger. A small beam of light came on and blinded her momentarily.

He was on his back, now, his spine arched in a cruel curve. His fingers were clawing at the muzzle, a scream bubbling in his throat, unable to get out, a disgusting, terrifying sound. His eyes were squeezed shut. She watched in horror as the blood foamed around the gag, both from the scratches he inflicted himself and from the penalty the spell dished out for his sins against it. 

She leaned over and tried shaking his arm. He thrashed and a convulsion shook his body. His breath was coming in erratic, torn wheezes, his chest heaving, every breath a labored effort. 

“Come on,” she pleaded and grabbed his hands, trying to get them away from his face, but she might be wrestling with the Hulk just as well. “You have to wake up! Snap out of it! It’s not real!” The struggle knocked out the flashlight from her hand, it flew through the air and landed in the grass, plucking them back into darkness.

As the last resort, she reached for his face and gently placed her hand on his forehead. “Wake up.” His skin was sticky with sweat but still cold to the touch. “Please, wake up,” she said, keeping her voice low, even if she felt like screaming on the inside.

The thrashing subsided and his moves grew less frantic. After a couple of seconds, she felt him slowly starting to relax, breathing evening out.

She was about to exhale in relief as he snatched her hand and yanked it away from his face, his grip crushing. She cried out in surprise, and then, when he didn’t let go, in pain. She could feel the bones in her wrist shifting and creaking under pressure.

“It’s me. Natasha,” she whispered shakily, somehow convinced that he wouldn’t hurt her if he knew. It didn’t work. She groped for the torch but couldn’t quite reach it and when she tried yanking away, she felt something give way and a wave of hot, white agony spilled over her arm. She gritted her teeth to stop herself from screaming.

She froze. Struggling was not working, whatever nightmare he was stuck in was holding him in its clutches too tightly for reasoning to work as well. _Think, Natasha._

She eyed the torch again. It was too far for her to reach, but if she tried… She unfolded her legs and somehow managed to roll the torch closer with her heel. She got a hold of it with her free hand. Loki’s eyes were wide open, and he blinked when she aimed the beam at him. His gaze was confused. Absent. Scared. She turned the light to herself, so he could see her face.

“Listen to me. I’m here to help you,” she said, as calmly as she could. He blinked a couple more times and only then, finally, he looked at her like he was actually seeing, then down at his own hand squeezing her wrist. Blood was dripping from his flaring nostrils. “That’s right. It’s fine. You can let go of my hand now.”

Watching the realization dawn on Loki’s face was almost as painful as his grip. His eyes narrowed then went wide again and he looked at her with terror. He swallowed, hard. The grasp loosened and then he slowly unfurled his fingers and let her take her hand away. She clutched it to her chest.

He scrambled, got onto his knees and sat down on his haunches.

“Bad dreams, huh?”

He was panting and – when he reached to wipe his face – his hand was shaking. _[Yes.]_

“So, you’ve met those things now.”

_[No.]_

_Uhm_. “What was it then?” she asked, and then had to swallow another grunt, as she tried to move her left hand to sign.

He ignored her question. _[I hurt you,]_ he said, instead.

“I… I don’t know,” she answered, even if he wasn’t really asking. She placed the flashlight on the ground and examined the injured hand in the small triangle of light. The imprints Loki’s fingers left around her wrist were still red, but bruises would soon follow, it was also swelling quickly. She felt it around for damage. “I don’t think it’s broken. But the joint is dislocated.”

_[Will it fix?]_

“No. Not like that. I need to set it first,” she said. She didn’t have the most positive of memories from the last couple of times when she had to do that and she definitely wasn’t looking forward to having another, but it didn’t look like she had much choice in that matter. The longer she dallied, the worse it would get. “But I’ll be all right.”

She should be furious. She should be lashing out in anger and telling him to go fuck himself, trying to find a way to punish him somehow for how he attacked her, to retaliate. But that – usually so vocal – vindictive voice stayed silent this time. It wasn’t intentional, that was obvious. The rest could wait.

_[Let me.]_

She eyed him warily. “Do you even know how to do it?”

_[Yes.]_

Her mind played an already familiar scene of her asking “are you sure”, followed by his slightly exasperated affirmation and she decided to skip it. It would be easier to just assume he means it when he says something from now on. And it was quite believable that he would know, in that case at least, their basic body structures were similar enough, so he was probably aware of how joints worked. “Okay. Just…” _Be gentle._ “Try not to do more damage.”

She allowed him to grab her wrist, as much as her primal instincts fired in warning against it. He was being careful, and his cool touch brought relief. She wondered, once again, what caused him to have a such a lower body temperature. Was it some sort of energy conservation system? Or was it just how his body operated in general? Whatever it was, it wasn’t an ideal feature for their current situation, so most likely it wasn’t something that he could control.

He located the bone that was out of its socket and shoved it, back into place, in one decisive move, giving her no prior warning, holding her arm down so she wouldn’t jerk away instinctively. She cried out a string of colorful curses in three different languages; it was still preferred to unintelligible screaming. He held on to her for a moment longer, his fingers still probing, checking if everything was in order, before he let go.

He got up, and marched away towards the stream, his gait a bit unsteady. She lost the sight of him as soon as he moved away from the small circle of light, but she could hear water splashing nearby, so he didn’t go far.

She tested the range of motion. The joint worked, even if it hurt to move. She would still have it in a splint for a couple of weeks, back at home, to keep the injury from renewing, but she had no such comforts here and she needed to be able to use both hands. She should still wrap it up at least, to provide some sort of support and keep the swelling under control. She wondered which part of her wardrobe wouldn’t be missed if she sacrificed it for the purpose.

Loki came back. He has washed the blood off his face, but it still looked gaunt and hollow, the shadows under his eyes even deeper and the skin more pallid than usually. Or maybe that was just the trick of light. The new lacerations around his jaw and cheeks weren’t though.

She was holding her small blade, about to cut the sleeve off her uniform. _[May I?]_ he asked and pointed at the knife.

She stilled; the knife clutched tightly in her hand. She wasn’t even sure why. If he meant to harm her, like, deliberately, she would be dead by now, many times over, and yet the doubt was still there, at the back of her mind. He noticed her hesitation and let out a sad sigh, then proceeded to tear away a strip of cloth from the bottom of his tunic. It came out somewhat uneven, because, yeah, it would go much easier with a knife.

He grabbed her wrist again (she let him) and started wrapping it, making sure it was tight enough to hold but not too tight, so it wouldn’t cut out circulation. He eyed his work critically and tugged at the looped end to check if it’d stay in place before releasing her hand.

She looked at the scraps of her shirt still sitting around his own wrist under the shackle. “Now we even have matching friendship bracelets and all,” she said and giggled nervously. “Thanks.”

He nodded, even if it didn’t look like he understood the joke.

“So, about that nightmare of yours… If it wasn’t like mine, with the light creature and whatnot, what was it?”

 _[Bad memories,]_ he said.

That was exactly the moment her small flashlight picked to run out of charge and there was only darkness again.

\---

The ground trembled. It was mild at first, like she was standing on a bridge and a loaded truck passed by, the sensation followed by a rumbling sound, like a thunder rolling in the distance. There was a moment of stillness and silence. Then the shaking returned, much stronger than before, and so did the rumbling, louder and much closer.

Then the entire world convulsed and shattered to pieces. She still couldn’t see a thing.

She might have screamed, but she wasn’t sure, she couldn’t hear her own voice over the roar of the ground being torn apart and all the ripping and crashing. Something hit her, maybe a branch or a falling rock, she couldn’t tell. She cowered and curled into a ball on the ground, her hands above her head, not knowing where the next hit could come from and whether it would be strong enough to kill her.

Suddenly, there was an arm around her, then another, and Loki’s chest was pressing against her side, his body shielding her from the unseen inferno around. She pushed her hands to her ears to muffle the sounds, but they still reverberated through her bones.

He didn’t move away until the quaking stopped. 


	11. Waves

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which a due change of scenery is occurring.

They sat in the dark, Loki’s shoulder next to hers serving as the only anchor to reality. She felt like she would tumble into an unknown void if she moved just an inch, so she didn’t, and she was thankful that he did not either.

There were a couple of aftershocks, but none as serious as the main event. Or at least than what she hoped was the main event.

It seemed like ages has passed before the glow seeping between the greenery finally allowed her to assess her surroundings. It was almost disappointing in a way, that there was that little damage, compared to how it felt. A tree got knocked over, a two dozen yards away from them, and was hanging over the stream now, there were also loose branches and a steady blanket of fresh leaves strewn all over the ground, but that’s about it.

“I expected more destruction,” she admitted.

_[I think it happens a lot.]_

He was right, probably. The landscape features they’ve witnessed so far had to be an effect of a high tectonic activity, and it looked like the process was still going. Well, compared to the quake that must’ve created the ridge, the one they just lived through seemed relatively mild and harmless.

“There goes the ‘nice place’ moniker, I guess,” she said.

_[Could be worse.]_

She realized that, but it didn’t exactly boost her morale.

\---

The next time they stopped, as the planet-moon was about to set, she was ready to swallow her pride.

“I don’t want to sound selfish or anything,” she said, “but I would appreciate if we found something to eat.” _For me, as you can’t have any anyway_ was left unsaid, but it still sounded in her mind, like a curse. “Or you could at least tell me what to look for to find those alien carrots or whatever it was.”

_[We need a fire.]_

“Why?”

_[It needs to be cooked to not kill you.]_

She blinked at him. “Excuse me?”

 _[It needs to be cooked to not kill you,]_ he repeated, like it was the most normal thing in the world.

“I got that part the first time, thank you” she said, “but I feel like the part where you decided it’s fine to feed me something that would kill me if it wasn’t cooked is the source of controversy in that sentence.”

_[It was cooked.]_

She laughed. Yeah, that was Loki all over again, wasn’t it?

_[You want to find more or not?]_

She sighted, “I suppose.”

\---

He showed her what to look for, an ivy-like weed with small, oval, red-framed leaves. It was growing in abundance all around the forest floor, so that at least was a comforting information.

He also pointed her at another shrub, kind of like an oversized jade plant, with big, fleshy leaves. The young, top ones produced white, viscous liquid when broken apart. _[Not as good, but still edible,]_ he said.

“How do you even know that?” she asked. “It _is_ the first time you are here, right?”

 _[Some of my senses still work,]_ he said. _[Why don’t you?]_

“Humans don’t actually have homing devices pointing us at the closest source of food, you know.”

He raised an eyebrow. _[How did you find out what is edible and what is not on your own world?]_

“Uhm, trial and error?”

He huffed out a laugh, like that was a completely ridiculous concept.

\---

She went off to collect some firewood. Loki offered to help, albeit not too enthusiastically and she handwaved his offer, “but you’ll have to light it, because I don’t think I’ll be able to do that, with my wrist hurt and all.”

At least the earthquake made finding fuel for the fire a lot easier, with broken branches laying everywhere. She dragged a couple of bigger ones over to their camp and was about to turn to go for more when he stopped her. _[Can I have your,]_ he paused and his brows furrowed, _[wrist thing?]_

“Wristbands?”

_[Yes.]_

“They don’t work anymore.”

_[Do they have fuel… cells?]_

“Yeah, batteries. But I think they’re fried after they’ve been doused with water.

_[May I see?]_

“Uhm, sure,” she said, pulled one from its pocket and gave it to Loki. “You need both?”

 _[One is enough.]_ He took it, sat down, and turned the device in his hands it with a focused intent. It took him a moment to identify the power bank and he pulled it free, then tossed away the rest. He started taking the housing apart, trying to pry the lid off using his fingernails.

“Here,” she said, “this should make it easier.”

He looked at her and the knife she was holding out, handle first, with open suspicion. She rolled her eyes. He took the blade, weighted it in his hand briefly and flipped it, perfectly, like he had years to get used to the weapon’s balance.

 _Nice._ “Show-off,” she chuckled, and he made a face.

He took one of the batteries out and pulled free a loose wire from the casing. He stripped its insulation off, cut it in half and connected the pieces to each side of the cell. He moved the wires closer until there was a spark, jumping from one to the other. He gathered a bunch of dry grass, made wires touch again and the bundle caught on fire.

“How did you know that would work?”

_[Electricity works the same everywhere. Batteries and wires are not only a mortal invention.]_

It wasn’t exactly what she was asking about, but she accepted the answer anyway.

_[Are you not going to give me the sign?]_

“Which one?” she asked, feigning ignorance. She was pretty sure she knew which one he meant.

 _[Mortal,]_ he spelled again.

 _Of course._ “I hate that name,” she admitted begrudgingly, “and it somehow feels even more derogatory in sign.” She still showed him. _Person who can die_ was the literal transcription.

 _[I see,]_ he said and frowned _, [but I can’t use your sign for_ human _.]_

“I do see your point,” she said with a chuckle. The gesture for “human” featured pointing at oneself and that obviously didn’t work with Loki. “Can we settle on _a person from Earth_ then? Like in _a person from Asgard_ , or any other place?”

 _[Aesir,]_ he spelled.

“What?”

_[That is the name for Thor’s people.]_

“And yours.”

_[No, not mine. Not anymore.]_

\---

“I’ll try sleeping for a bit,” she said, after she ate. “Could you… stay close and…”

 _[Yes,]_ he said, before she even finished the sentence.

And, when she found herself in the cavern again, he was there to guide her out, right away.

\---

They found a rhythm, dividing the long day and night cycle into three sections of just _pushing forward_ , interspersed with periods of rests. She didn’t bother with trying to guess how long those ‘days’ and ‘nights’ were, there was no point in that.

They’d set off at dawn, taking the first break around noon to wait out the worst heat, then walk till sundown and wait for the planet-moon to rise to carry on in its glow until it got too dark to see again.

Sometimes they found a place to light a fire, other times they just huddled in complete blackness.

The nightmares were constant companions, both for her, and for Loki.

She asked him, just once, if this was something new to him as well. He looked at her for a long time, then shook his head and didn’t say anything else for the rest of the morning.

Excluding that first time, he always woke up when she shook his arm, just like he was always there to pull her out of the cave. It wasn’t ideal, but it worked and none of them was too eager to bring it up, like if just mentioning it could destroy the unstable equilibrium of that arrangement.

On day four they reached the coast.

\---

She took off her boots and let the hot, white sand seep between her toes. “This is nice.”

Loki just sighed. Walking barefoot probably lost its novelty quickly.

“You think it’s safe for swimming?” she asked. The sea was enticing, the water clear with an azure tint, low, lazy waves rolling with the slight breeze under the blazing midday sun.

 _[One way to find out,]_ he said.

She undid her belt and took off her uniform all the way off, then tossed both onto the sand, next to her boots. “You coming?”

Loki visibly hesitated before he started to pull his shirt off. She didn’t see him do that before, even if she knew, logically, that he had to, at one point or another. It was always when she was not around. And now she stared because she could see the reason for that. She didn’t mean to, but, fuck, this was too much to take in all at once.

First of all, _I am good, my ass_. The entire left side of his abdomen and chest was a single mottled bruise, some parts of it fading and yellowed, but some still blue and dark purple, with bloody undertones. Shit, if this was how it looked after, what, over a week’s time at least, she didn’t even want to imagine how bad it was originally.

Second, if someone had any qualms with the idea that an Asgardian… Aesir skeletal system was similar to the human’s one, Loki would make a perfect study aid to prove them wrong. She already figured he was in less than stellar physical condition, but the extent of the issue was still a nasty surprise. The way his collarbones and hipbones stuck out and the shadow below his sternum made it impossible to believe it was only a result of this recent deprivation. No, it was a body of a fit man who lost a considerable amount of weight over a course of months, if not years, but still had to use it to the full extent of its durability in the meantime, until there was nothing left but sinewy muscle over bones, the bone structure and stance not allowed to adapt to the change. She knew exactly where she saw that before. Agents captured behind the enemy lines and forced to fight their way out. Soldiers on battlefronts cut away from supply lines. Prisoners in labor camps. 

_Fuck._

He noticed her staring and turned away with a barely audible grunt.

His back didn’t tell a nicer story at all; just the second act of the same tragedy. The bruise wrapped around his side and reached the backbone, every vertebra highlighted with a lesion mark. There were some sort of markings there, too.

At first glance she took them for something deliberate, like a decorative, tribal scarring or a tattoo done with red ink, but it was too irregular to be that. Shaped like roots of a tree, starting between his (ostentatiously prominent) shoulder blades, it extended over his ribs and continued past the waistline of his pants, out of view. 

Then she remembered what the shape was, and the realization made her stomach lurch. The Lichtenberg figure. An imprint left on flesh by high voltage electricity. Like from a lightning strike.

“Is this… Thor’s doing?” she asked quietly.

 _[No, it is not.]_ His moves were pointed and his eyes angry. _[Are we going or not?]_

“Yeah, we’re going,” she said, without much enthusiasm. All her good mood was gone.

_Fuck._

\---

“Does it hurt?” she asked.

They were lounging on the beach, drying off after a refreshing swim. The water was just perfect.

_[What?]_

_Everything._ “The scar.”

 _[No.]_ “Not anymore” was left hanging in the air.

The marked skin looked rough and bumpy, something between a burn and a lash.

“What is it from?”

_[A spell.]_

“What kind of spell?”

_[The nasty one.]_

_Yeah,_ she thought, _I can imagine._

\---

Hey, sleepy-head,” she said and shook Loki’s shoulder. He opened his eyes and blinked at her; a hint of surprise evident in his glare. It was almost weird, to see him wake up like that, with his mind already back in the present, without the need to shake off the haunting nightmares first.

He sat up. _[Did I do something?]_

“No, and I’m sorry to wake you up, but we need to relocate, pronto.”

His hands started to move, probably to ask why, but then he looked around and reconsidered. The waves that lapped a good hundred yards away when they were setting the camp were now swelling up right next to them, every single one coming closer and closer.

 _[It looks like we do,]_ he said and sprung up. She got up as well and grabbed her stuff.

This was the moment when one particularly insistent wave rolled over their fire and put it out with a hiss.

“Well, at least we don’t have to worry about that,” she said at the darkness. The sudden loss of a light source left her functionally blind. “Although it presents its own set of problems.”

Loki got a hold of her and guided her away from the sea and towards the dry land. And, even that her eyes adjusted to the faint light of the open starry sky after a while and she was able to recognize the vague outlines of the world around her, she didn’t pull her hand free until they’ve reached the tree line.

\---

 _[I should have thought of that,]_ he said with a frown.

The moon-planet has risen, and they were getting ready to hit the road again.

“So should I,” she said and he raised an eyebrow. “We do have tides on Earth, you know.”

 _[I do,]_ he showed with a sigh, _[that is one of the reasons I should know it happens here too.]_

“Don’t worry about it,” she said and waved her hand, “it’s not like we died because we didn’t figure it out in time. We just got a little wet.”

_[This time.]_

“I guess,” she said, mostly because she really didn’t want to argue about something so irrelevant. “But no one is infallible and if you expect yourself to always get everything right, you’re going to get disappointed sooner or later. After all you’re only…” she paused. No, that’s not what she was going for with that.

 _[What?]_ he asked, his expression mocking. _[A_ person from Earth? _]_ He actually bothered to add air quotes after the term. At this point she wasn’t even surprised he was familiar with the phrase. Loki seemed familiar with a great deal of things he shouldn’t be according to reason and logic.

“Right now? Mainly a dick,” she said, without losing a beat.

 _[You need to work on your choice of insults. It is lacking.]_ He huffed out in feigned indignation. _[I can be convinced to give you a lesson or two if you ask nicely.]_

“Nah, I’m fine with the free samples you’ve so kindly provided already,” she snapped in return.

_[You are no fun.]_

“Look who’s talking.”

_[Certainly not me.]_

She laughed, which apparently meant he won.

“So… there are no tides on Asgard?” she asked after a while.

_[No. She has no moon. And she is not a planet.]_

“Not a planet? Then what is it?” she questioned, her curiosity flaring up.

_[A piece of rock, hanging in space. With magic.]_

“Okay, you officially lost me there.”

_[It is a sight to behold.]_

“Well, I hope I do get to see it one day then,” she said with a pleasant smile.

He took in a sharp breath and looked away, and even his guarded, neutral façade couldn’t hide the forlorn look in his eyes. _Me too_ , it whispered, _me too_.

\---

They carried on along the coast, north wise, a direction Loki picked, seemingly at random. She didn’t question the decision, it was just as good as the alternative, since they had no idea what they were even looking for anyway.

Walking on the wet strip of sand licked smooth by the sea made their progress a bit quicker, not to mention it was a lot more comfortable than wading through the dense undergrowth. She was wary of leaving the stream behind and cutting themselves away from a source of fresh water ­– the seawater was just as salty and not suitable for drinking as one could expect – but Loki found her some leaves she could chew on to satiate the thirst. She was aware that didn’t solve the problem for him, but staying in one place was pointless and just as dangerous for Loki in the long run, so she accepted the necessary sacrifice he was making without a peep.

She was still incredibly grateful when they found another small stream running from between the trees and into the sea on the evening the next day.

“We should do something about the water situation,” she said, “so you wouldn’t have to go thirsty when we are not able to find a fresh source.”

_[I can manage.]_

“I noticed, but that’s not the point and it would be great if you didn’t have to.”

Loki answered with a displeased snuffle, like the very suggestion offended him somehow.

“Would it really hurt you so much to drop the plucky attitude for five fucking minutes?”

 _[It is the only thing I have left,]_ he said.

The disarming frankness in the statement put her on a momentary pause and stopped her from insisting further.

She was determined to never even mention the issue again, but, when she came back to the camp that evening, Loki presented her with a piece of hollowed out bamboo stalk, capped with a cork carved out of a piece of wood and wrapped with some sort of plant fiber around the seal.

_[Here. You can carry it. It was your idea.]_

She took the makeshift flask with a knowing grin and uncorked it. It was already filled with water and showed no sign of leaks, so it looked like Loki’s craftmanship was solid. She regarded his work with an appreciative nod, which he chose to completely ignore, of course.

He reached behind his belt, pulled out her knife and handed it back to her. She left it on the stones by the fire and he must’ve borrowed it to craft the container.

“Nah, keep it, you’re handier with it anyway.”

\---

She finished her evening hygiene routine and headed back for the beach. Reaching the coast at least solved the issue of finding an open area for a camp.

She stopped at the edge of the forest, hidden behind a trunk.

Loki was still where she left him. He was sitting on the sand, looking into the fire, his chin resting on a bent knee. He was poking the glowing embers with a stick, his thousand-yard stare suggesting he was not completely there again.

She should go and talk to him, she thought. Tell him she was back and maybe drag him out of whatever dark place he was currently in and back to reality.

She didn’t move from her vantage point.

What was she even doing? How did she allow this to go from working him up to… this level of involvement?

The circumstances forced them to rely on each other for survival, but she allied with all sorts of individuals in the past, some of whom turned out to be quite a questionable company. The means justified by the goal. It didn’t mean she cared about what happened to them afterwards or that she was hesitant to expend justice after their usefulness was depleted if the situation called for it.

And Loki was still the man who rained death on her home and the fact that he currently wasn’t acting like the psychopathic megalomaniac he was back on Earth didn’t change that. No one with any sort of moral backbone would do what he did and still have the audacity to laugh about it to their victims’ faces. No, that took a complete madman.

The thing was, as much as she tried, she couldn’t reconcile the images of the raging lunatic from New York and Loki she was getting to know. He had serious issues, that was non-negotiable, but there wasn’t anything inherently… broken beyond repair in him. He might be curt, but there was a quick-fire intellect hidden underneath. He might seem indifferent and full of himself, but it was only a skin-deep pose and his first instinct in an emergency was still to reach out with a helping hand, time after time. He was clever and resourceful. Funny, too, in this dry kind of way, even if still quite a bit of an asshole.

At this point she pretty much dismissed the thought that it was all only a manipulation tactic; it was too consistent, faking unconscious reactions took the level of self-control he didn’t seem to possess.

Maybe he just found a way to hide all the hate and darkness and cruelty, to bury it behind meaningless smiles, courtesy, and fake kindness. She remembered how that tasted like, oh so well, from way back, before she managed to break the conditioning, before Clint found her and dragged her out of the dark void of her previous life and into the light. Before he gave her a purpose. Before he gave her a family.

 _You’re projecting, Natasha, you and Loki are not – in any way – alike_.

She was six when she was taken to the Red Room. She could barely remember her life before that, not even the faces or names of her parents. _They_ took her and made her into a lethal weapon, flayed away her humanity, piece by piece, until she couldn’t tell right from wrong, good from evil, enemies from friends. That burden was on _them_ , not on her.

 _“But you don’t know what Loki’s life was like before he came to Earth, do you?”_ that voice at the back of her head chimed in. “ _Maybe, just maybe, there are some attenuating circumstances for him as well?”_

There was something there, something awful that happened to him, that much was obvious. The scars, the nightmares, the absent stares, the weight loss, the way he twitched at sudden movements – all unmistakable signs of trauma she tried very hard to ignore the implications of but couldn’t help to notice. Bits, small shreds of half-truths; the mismatched puzzle pieces that refused to snap together, no matter how much she tried to twist and turn and force them into place.

And there was that gray alien dude, back on the jet. He obviously wasn’t friendly, not to her, nor to Loki. He was saying something about failure and punishment. Loki was afraid of him, really, truly afraid. He was able to keep a straight face when the Avengers stood over him and gloated after his defeat or when he was being taken to be tortured for information. But when the Maw guy showed up, he just… crumbled. It didn’t strike her as uncharacteristic then, because so much went on in an instant and she didn’t know Loki at all, but now she could see it clearly. 

Was this something Loki brought onto himself by pissing off some less forgiving people? Another form of twisted justice that was levied onto him? Or was he the innocent one in that case?

_No, it doesn’t matter._

It was not her duty to fix him nor it was her place to try to redeem him. She just couldn’t be that person. She didn’t have the empathy it took to see past man’s actions and see into their _souls,_ the capacity for selflessness it took to reach out to someone who hurt her and people she cared about. She was trained to pull people apart, crush their defenses and tear their secrets away from them, not to put them back together. 

And why should she? She didn’t owe Loki anything. Him, or anyone. Even after she joined SHIELD, after months of cognitive therapy to make sure she won’t relapse into her old dangerous mindset, everyone eyed her every move with distrust or open hostility. It took years, countless missions where she had to prove her loyalty beyond any doubt, over and over, before that changed. She had to earn her peers’ forgiveness and respect; it wasn’t handed to her on a silver platter. There was no unpaid karmic balance she owed the universe.

_Well, that’s a lie, Natasha, and you know it._

Even at that darkest hour she still had Clint, who – for some unknown reason - trusted her to have his back when everyone else was afraid to let her out of sight and tolerated her presence just because of her unique skillset. Who always had a kind word for her, even if it was veiled as a tease. And when, that one time, she asked “why _me_?”, his only answer was “because someone did that for me and I’m paying it forward”.

She didn’t know how he was able to see something more than an enemy in her, to see that last spark of humanity she wasn’t even aware was still there. Not then and not now, after all those years, not even after learning Clint’s history. It took a special kind of person to do that and it wasn’t her. It couldn’t be her.

 _“C’mon, Nat, you never know till you try”_ , the small voice went off again, and – this time – it sounded suspiciously like Barton’s. 

\---

On the eighth day the ground shook again, one sharp jolt that made her knees buckle and her stomach sink. She stayed down and braced for another, but it didn’t come.

“Was that all of it?” she asked hopefully.

Loki ignored her. He managed to stay upright, just barely. Now his gaze was fixed on the sea. Very rapidly receding sea.

“Is that…”

They looked at one another.

“I think we have to run.”

Loki nodded.

They ran.


	12. High Ground

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which nature is being a dick.

She had no idea how much time they had. She tried to remember how exactly tsunamis worked, but she found it hard to get her memories to jog when she was fucking running from one. An inane piece of trivia that a seismic wave could take hours or even days to reach the coast rang somewhere at the back of her mind, but she had no use for it now. Water being pulled away from the shore immediately must mean the source was somewhere close and they had minutes, if that.

That’s why she wasn’t a bit surprised that Loki didn’t even bother to look inland. They were at the very edge of the water when the jolt came. The beach was wide here, wider than before, and there was a stretch of an open, grassy meadow, separating the point where the sand ended and where the forest began. That put at least half a mile between their position and the trees. Not to mention that the ground was flat all over the area and just reaching the woods did nothing to improve their chances if water was high enough to reach that far. And there definitely was not enough time for tree climbing, even if they’ve managed to get to them before the wave hit. So yeah, she trusted Loki’s instincts in that one.

He’d better be knowing what he’s doing, it was him who jinxed it in the first place.

There was a line of a peninsula on the horizon in front of them, its tall bluffs rising out the sea in the distance. It was far away. Too far. They ran in that direction still, or, more precisely, towards one of the rock formations sticking out of the water – or, currently, out of the exposed seafloor – between them and the cape. Loki ignored the first one, it was barely high enough to stay above the normal water level. The second one was a lot more promising: tall and narrow stone column, tapered towards the flat top, a maybe two-and-then-some dozen feet high. It should suffice.

It would _have to_ suffice because there was nothing else. And, by the time they’ve reached its foot, she could already see the angry line of returning seawater on the horizon. It was growing thicker and thicker every second.

Loki didn’t even stop; he used the momentum from the sprint to push himself off the ground and grab onto a rock outcropping.

She stopped, unable to do the same. That feat required the level of agility simply not available to a human. Not even to her.

Higher above, the pillar’s walls were weathered, jagged and uneven, as if made for climbing, but – up to the point of the regular sea level – they were smooth, polished by the moving water almost to a sheen, slick with moisture and covered with a layer of algae. There was nothing to hold on to.

She still tried grabbing onto a promising bump, but her hand just slipped right off. She moved a step to the side and tried another one, with similar results.

She felt inadequate, yet again. _This is what hanging out with aliens gets you, Natasha._

She could see the incoming wave in the corner of her eye. The morbid curiosity made her turn her head and look at it. She froze. It was massive. It was roiling and foaming, breaking under its own weigh, and its speed and impetus was sending quivers through the ground underneath her feet. It looked a lot messier, and more sludgy, and _scarier_ than the National Geographic documentaries had her believe.

 _Hmm,_ she thought, _I wonder how it’s going to feel when it hits me._

Loki stopped, well past halfway through the climb, and looked down at her.

“I can’t jump that high,” she said and forced herself to smile. She had to shout, to make herself heard over the roar. “Go! I’ll…”

He let go off the wall and landed next to her with a splash. He bent his knees, put his hands together, and indicated the wall with a nod, his eyes hard.

She didn’t even think to argue, just jumped a couple steps back, ran at him and accepted the boost. She hit the wall and slid down a few feet before her fingers found support and broke her descent with a jerk, almost strong enough to knock her off again. Her wrist twisted in pain, but she ignored it, pushed it to the back of her mind. She could worry about that later. She started climbing.

She didn’t look down to see if Loki made it back onto the wall, there was no time for that. She couldn’t do anything to help. He made that decision and there was nothing she could do but to use the chance he gave her wisely.

 _He will be fine_ , she told herself. _He has to._

The ground jolted again in an aftershock. She clung to the wall, pushing her fingers into a crack in the rock. Her foot slipped. She gripped the uneven edge so hard she felt her fingernails breaking, but she did not let go until the shaking subsided. Only then she felt for a support for her feet again and continued upwards.

She did not think. Not about how much time she has (seconds), nor about what would happen if any of them did not make it (they die). She did not look down still and only glanced up as far as she needed to find new support to grab onto. Knowing how far it is to the top wouldn’t change a thing.

She was almost surprised when her hands found purchase on the edge of the column. She pushed herself up and onto the top, belly first, then her knees. The air was moist and vibrant in anticipation, the cacophony of sounds fusing into a high-pitched shriek in her ears.

She crawled a step further and turned. She didn’t want to look down. She still did.

Loki was just below the edge. She stretched out her hand. He noticed, reached to take it and almost…

The wave hit.

The sheer energy of the mass of water shook the entire rock formation. A wall of water rose from the impact and the splash pushed her away. She fell backwards. Her neck connected with something hard and unyielding. There was a quick stab of white-hot pain and the darkness followed.

\---

The cavern.

The fucking cavern again.

She fell to her knees. Her heart was beating its frantic rhythm in her throat and her head and wrist throbbed along with it. She felt like screaming.

_Loki, you hopeless idiot, why the fuck did you pick this moment to act like a goddamned hero?_

On second thought, why shouldn’t she scream? It’s not like there was anybody to hear her. Just delusions and phantoms, byproducts of some long forgotten magic or maybe just her stressed out mind.

She did. One incoherent wail after another tore out of her lips, until she ran completely out of breath and her throat turned raw. The sounds bounced off the walls and returned to her as muffled echoes. It didn’t make her feel any better.

The light was getting closer.

Was she stuck here forever, without Loki to pull her out?

_No, stop that, Natasha. He is fine. He is one tough alien motherfucker; some water is nothing compared to the Hulk._

She deliberately ignored the flaws in that logic. He was _fine_. Fine, definitely alive and pissed at her because he got himself wet for her sake. That’s all.

The light creature stood before her. “You are not running this time,” popped up in her head, and – without any intonation – she couldn’t tell if it was threating her or just stating facts.

She started laughing and got startled by how hysterical it sounded. Hysterical and more than a little bit insane.

“Looks like I am not,” she said in rough voice and pushed her head up, “so you may bring it on just as well.”

The phantom’s outline wavered and faded, then reignited again.

“Your friend.”

Natasha blinked.

“He needs your help.”

Her heart swerved inside her ribcage and the cavern shattered and folded away.

\---

The reality was hot and damp and painful. She tried standing up, but the world swung sideways and she reeled, fell to all fours and vomited violently. A warm, sticky wetness plastered her clothes to her spine. She ran her hand against the nape of her neck and it came out bloodied.

She dragged herself up to her knees, her body fighting her efforts every inch of the way. Her head was swaying, her thoughts scattered like skittish ferrets in a blazing farmhouse.

 _Get up_ , she told herself, _you need to get up and find…_

“Loki!” she called and his name rang hollowly inside her brain, like a cracked church bell. A new surge of adrenaline flushed over her system.

She looked around. She was still on top of the stone pillar. Alone.

She crawled to the edge. The sea has returned and the silt in water has mostly settled, like nothing has ever happened. The thin line of foam at the waterline and the debris on the beach ­– loose tree limbs and tangled pieces of brushes and grass – served as the only reminders of the disaster that has rolled through the landscape. 

She scanned it for… she wasn’t sure for what, exactly. Loki, standing on the shore, his arms crossed at his chest and a stern look of discontent on his face, preferably.

No such luck though.

He took the brunt of the force, the wave crushing him against the rock. If he were human, he would have no chances of surviving that.

But he wasn’t.

 _It would be me if it weren’t for him,_ rattled in her thoughts, until she squashed it. There were more pressing matters, she could dwell on what-ifs when she finds him. _If._

Did the retreating current carry him away to the open sea? She’s heard stories like that… She turned. The sea was calm, the gradient going evenly from azure near the beach to a rich teal, further in the distance, where it got deeper. It looked empty, but would she even be able to spot something so far away?

She squeezed her eyes shut, fighting another wave of nausea. She didn’t know how much time has passed when she was out cold. It could’ve been a whole say as far as she knew. It didn’t feel like that, but it wasn’t out of the question either. Was she too late?

_Please, don’t leave me._

She surveyed the beach one more time. Then she saw it. A figure, black and grey against the white sand, far away in the distance, laying at the edge of the water. Motionless.

She sprung up and almost went back down immediately, the movement sending her head spinning and putting the world on a tilt. She stopped, just for a second, to steady herself, then started climbing down.

She made it only a few steps down the wall before her foot lost traction and she fell, ungainly, into the sea, the impact sending needles through her back and knocking the air out of her lungs. She beat the water, her body stiff and unwieldy, until she got back to the surface, then swam towards the shore, using less a swimming style and more a series of desperate motions aimed to just stay afloat.

She crawled onto the land and took in a couple deep gasps of air before forcing herself to stand up. Then she ran.

She might have fallen, once or twice. She didn’t care. _Please be breathing, please be breathing_ ran through her thoughts, like a mantra.

She slid to her knees next to Loki. He was sprawled on the sand, face down, his limbs splayed at his sides at very unnatural angles, ebbing waves tugging at his hair. He looked… wrong. Smaller, somehow. Vulnerable. Very, very _mortal_.

_Please be breathing._

She turned him over carefully and put her cheek to his face.

He wasn’t breathing.

Fighting the sinking feeling in her stomach, she pressed two fingers to the artery on his neck. She didn’t expect much. Just wanted to be sure.

A wave of relief spilled over her, dousing the fire that burned in her chest. There was a rhythm. Slow and barely perceptible, but most definitely present.

No breath but a pulse. _Okay, now what?_ Her first aid training was pretty lacking on the alien subjects.

Rescue breathing, yeah. That should help, right?

She moved, urged by instincts. Then her eyes landed on the muzzle, that was, of course, still securely locked over Loki’s mouth.

She wasn’t sure whether she wanted to cry or to laugh at the cold irony of the situation.

_Fuck you, Thor, fuck you so very much. If he dies, it’s on you._

She ignored the pressure rising behind her eyes. It was not the time nor a place for sentimental outbursts.

_Think, Natasha. There must be a way._

She tilted his head back, inhaled deeply and closed her mouth around his nose. She felt his chest rise under her hand. She counted to five ( _how much was it, five or six? Ten or twelve breaths a minute? How does that even work for aliens?_ ) then repeated the process. And again, and again.

She felt another layer of dizziness blurring the edges of her vision, this time from hyperventilation.

She didn’t stop. _This takes too long._

His skin was even colder than usually. She could taste salt on her tongue.

_Come on!_

Loki twitched and his eyes fluttered open. A cough rocked his frame, brutally stopped by the gag before it could leave his lips. Another followed.

She held his shoulder and helped him turn to his side. Seawater spluttered from his nostrils and from the hairline cracks between the plates of the muzzle, murky with blood. Tremors ran through his body as it tried to expel water from his airways but found no outlet. His hands shot up to his face, ready to claw the obstruction away. She wrapped her fingers around his wrists.

“No, don’t do that. It won’t help. You’ll only hurt yourself,” she whispered. It worked; this time he had no strength left to spare to struggle with her. He went slack and tried to inhale, sending himself into another coughing fit. “That’s right, just breathe.”

He tried, in rapid, torn spasms. _Come on, you can do it._

After what felt like forever, he took in a long, ragged breath that finally managed to stay in his lungs and she was ready to swear, right then and there, that it was the best sound she has ever heard.

She swept wet hair away from his eyes and let her hand linger on his temple, just for a second. “That’s the spirit. You’re doing great.”

He looked at her, his gaze exhausted but aware, tension and just plain despair pulling at the corners of his eyes.

 _I thought you’re dead. I thought I’m all alone_ , clattered in her brain, but she knew she wouldn’t be able to get it around the lump in her throat. _I thought you left me._

“Hey,” she said instead. It came out rough and raw, barely more than a whisper. Her cheeks burned. “Welcome back.”

He closed his eyes and went limp, his head falling back onto the sand.

She sat down for a long while and watched his chest rise and fall, with wet, wheezing sounds, water still dripping from his nose, painting the sand red. The apprehension slowly drained away, replaced with numbness. 

“What would you say to moving out of the water?” she asked. “You think you’re able to walk?”

He didn’t respond for a moment and she started to suspect he fell asleep or lost consciousness again, but then he nodded, slowly. There wasn’t much confidence in the motion.

She helped him up to his feet, held him up when he staggered and had to sneer at his attempts to walk on his own. “Come on, you were just swept by a tsunami, I think that is enough of an excuse for accepting some assistance,” she said. Only then he allowed her to grab his waist and placed an arm around her shoulders. “You’re fucking stubborn, anyone ever told you that?”

 _[One or two],_ his free hand showed, which was, most likely, his way to say “once or twice” without using the other arm. Yeah, persistent _and_ adaptable, that was exactly who he was.

\---

They didn’t make it far, just far enough to get to a dry patch of sand, before his legs gave way and he had to rely on her ability to hold his weight to not fall flat on his face. She helped him settle down on the ground. He pulled his knees up to his chest and wrapped his arms around his legs.

She seated herself nearby. He looked half-dead still, his skin so pale it seemed almost translucent, his eyes hollow and rimmed with red.

“I would appreciate if you didn’t do that again,” she said, after they’ve sat in silence for long minutes. She tried to keep her tone light, but a more serious edge still managed to creep its way in there somewhere down the line.

_[What?]_

“Die on me.”

_[Don’t be dramatic. I did not die. It wasn’t even close.]_

“Looked pretty damn close to me.”

He sighed and that alone tore another cough out of him. _[You are just as eager to underestimate me as everyone else,]_ he said, after he managed to control it.

“That is not… It’s not even in the same ballpark of what I meant. I just… you know what, forget it,” she snapped. “The moment is gone.”

For a split second it looked like he was about to say something, something to make it into an actual argument maybe, to poke at her patience further, but he dropped it and just huffed out a humorless laugh.

She stretched to get a cramp out of her neck and hissed, the movement suddenly, and quite painfully, reminding her of the injury. It was probably a good time to check on that, now that the immediate danger was gone.

She prodded the bump on the back of her head. It felt tender but it was starting to scab over. It was no longer an open wound and it didn’t seem to be bleeding anymore.

 _[What happened?]_ he asked.

“I fell and hit my head,” she admitted. “When the wave came.”

He looked at her, his eyebrows drawn. _[You want me to check it?]_

“I guess…” she agreed, more to humor him than anything else. “Although I’m not sure how I can trust your medical opinion, when you claim that drowning is not a serious health emergency.” She still moved closer and turned her back to him, so she only caught the impressive eyeroll with a corner of her eye.

She wasn’t quick enough to suppress the shiver when his fingers touched her skin. He immediately pulled away. “No, it’s fine, go on,” she said, “it’s actually making it better.”

A couple seconds passed before he resumed the examination. His hands were still rough from being in the water for too long.

“So, what’s the diagnose?” she asked, after he was done.

_[You will live. But I would advise forgoing hitting hard objects with your head for now.]_

“Duly noted,” she said, “but I can’t really make any promises.”

_[It is a wonder you people live as long as you do with so easy to damage bodies.]_

“Oh, no need to go full frontal superiority complex on me, space boy,” she shot back. “Besides, we still beat your ass. Frail bodies and all.”

She expected a sulk or at least a cutting repartee in return, but he seemed to be in a forgiving mood. _[So you did,]_ he admitted, _[quite convincingly.]_

 _Uh oh._ At least he was not in denial of what has happened. That was progress, although she could see it swinging in the other direction just as easily and that would pose its own set of issues. “I don’t think you’d enjoy ruling Earth anyway. We are known to be quite a rebellious bunch.”

_[Who said I wanted to rule?]_

“Uhm, you did? Something, something, ants, benevolent kings, freedom from freedom and so on?”

It seemed to confuse him for a second, but he recovered quickly. _[Who said I meant it?]_

Now that was an interesting remark. “Didn’t you?”

He shrugged and she couldn’t tell whether it was one of the dismissive, or of the “I don’t know” kind. She still filed it accordingly. She waited a moment, curious whether he would say something more on the subject, but he didn’t.

“I guess I need to thank you,” she said.

_[For what?]_

“Saving my life.” _Again._

His eyebrows twitched. _[Consider us even,]_ he said, and she wondered what he meant by that.

\---

“I’m getting really tired with this world’s bullshit,” she said. “Quakes, tsunamis. What’s next, a fucking day of the volcano?”

As if in answer, a lighting tore through the darkening northern sky, followed by a rumble of the thunder soon after. “You know what? Forget I even asked.”

\---

The sky turned dark with heavy rainclouds and it started raining. Swollen, solitary drops came first, but soon it turned into a wall of water just pelting the land.

They retreated behind the line of the trees. It wasn’t perfect but it still offered more protection than the beach.

She shuddered as an insistent drop found its way through the canopy above and ran down her spine. At least they won’t have to worry about drinking water for a while.

“I forgot to tell you earlier…”

_[About?]_

“When I hit my head, back on the rock, I blacked out. I ended up in the cavern again. The thing… It told me that you needed help. Then it let me go… I think,” she said. “It knows I’m not here alone. And it apparently thinks we are friends.”

Loki stared at her for a moment before he moved. _[Are we?]_ he asked, like it was the most important question that stemmed from what she just said.

“You tell me,” she said with a sad smile.

He didn’t answer and she couldn’t quite figure out the expression on his face. She wasn’t even sure she wanted to know what he would say.


	13. Lost

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which things manage to get even bleaker despite all odds.

It didn’t stop raining. The downpour subsided to a drizzle, but the sky was still overcast with low, heavy clouds. The mist in the air reduced visibility to a few hundred yards and washed all the otherworldly color from the landscape. If she really tried, she could fool herself it’s a rainy October’s day on Nauset beach and not some alien moon.

“I guess there’s no point in waiting anymore,” she said. “The forest is not any less wet than the beach at this point.”

Loki hummed in an unconvincing agreement and got onto his feet. He slept a little and it put some color back into his complexion, but his movements were still uncharacteristically sluggish and uncoordinated. He didn’t say much since he woke up and now he almost lost his balance just from getting up too quickly.

“On second thought, we may stay and rest a little longer,” she offered, belatedly, “if you feel like it.” She hoped he wouldn’t read too much into that.

He made a motion, a weird combination of a shrug and a head shake, then walked away, his expression downcast. Distant. He had those moments before, sure, but this time it didn’t even feel like he was trying to hide it.

She stood for a moment, watching him go, confused, before she ran up to him. “Are we back at non-comunicando, or what?” she inquired.

He didn’t answer right away, just narrowed his eyes at the distance. He took a couple more steps and then stopped. _[No.]_ He finally looked at her and the intensiveness in his stare made her uneasy. _[I need to…]_ He let his hands fall to his sides, fingers twisted into knots, fidgety.

She blinked.

He let out an exasperated breath. _[Never mind. Let us go.]_

She didn’t push it, giving him the space to process whatever it was that he was trying to process, just hoping that nothing bad would come out of it eventually.

\---

She didn’t question it when he led them towards the peninsula. It was an obvious direction and there was no point in turning back, even if it meant being on the beach again. They walked, without talking.

The procession was strangely reminiscent of that first day they’ve spent on the world. The same lack of a concrete destination, the same silence, the same anxiety creeping at the back of her head, even if the sources of it were quite different. Being out in the open without an escape route in case another quake hit. Loki’s dark mood and tiredness.

Time.

It’s been eight days. This world’s days, and she couldn’t even tell how much more it was counting in Earth’s. And they found nothing, not even a trace of anything that wasn’t centuries old and long abandoned. What if there was nothing here to find? How long could they survive? How long could Loki survive, without food or even his ability to heal?

She kept on watching him with the corner of her eye, trying not to be too obvious about it, but she didn’t need to worry about that. His usual watchfulness was gone. He held himself stiffly, his head down, face drawn in grim resolution.

Like he had a noose around his neck, and he was heading straight for the gallows.

She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to banish the thought, but it was there to stay, it seemed. 

Because, well, maybe he was. Maybe they both were, and she just didn’t know it yet. 

\---

She started to regret leaving the forest pretty quickly. She was wet and cold and tired and hungry. And Loki looked even worse for wear, despite that, she suspected, it had little to do with the weather. She should’ve let him rest for longer. For fuck’s sake, he was crushed by a goddamned thirty feet wave and then almost drowned a few hours ago, what was she thinking? He hid what could just as well be a potentially life-threatening injury for days, pretended that nightmares that woke him up with screams stuck in his throat meant nothing, acted like the metal lodged on his face was just a slight inconvenience and she would be fooled by claims that the heavy shackles still stuck around his wrist didn’t bother him at all if she didn’t see him adjusting the weight when he thought she wasn’t looking. Did she really expect him to tell her to stay put for his sake?

She bore seeing him sway on his feet for another quarter of an hour or so before she couldn’t take it anymore.

“I’m sorry, but I still don’t feel too well. I think I’ve overestimated my capabilities today. We should find a place for a camp,” she said. “A fire would be nice too.”

He studied her for a moment with a frown. _[Not here,]_ he said, _[let us get to the high ground.]_ He indicated the cliffs of the peninsula, maybe a mile away.

“Sure,” she said. There was a weird sort of comfort in the fact that he shared her aversion to staying out in the open for the night, even if that meant some more walking.

The cape cut into the otherwise flat land like a fin and extended far into the sea. There was no easy way to walk around it, they would have to climb it anyway, so they might use it for a camp just as well.

She scanned the cliffs for a potential way up and found it promising. Some parts were vertical, but there were some areas where the exposure to wind and waves weathered the crags to the point of collapse, creating milder slopes, some gentle enough to allow greenery and low, twisted trees to grow. Those looked climbable.

They could do it. They had to.

\---

They found a rocky overhang creating a shallow cave among the cliffs, it’s opening facing the sea. It meant having a solid roof over their heads for once, even if it offered little protection from the wind.

She gathered some wood, hoping that leaving it out of the rain for a while would make it viable to use as fuel. There were some dry leaves inside the cave they could use as kindling. She craved the warmth, the light.

Loki sat down at the edge of the cliff, feet dangling over the drop, wind tugging at his clothes and twisting into his hair. His hands were clasped in his lap, like there was still a chain holding them there. Sometimes she thought there really was, in his mind.

She perched next to him. The waves were crashing against the rocks below, their whisper joined by the gusts of wind howling in the treetops and the patter of rain.

Loki’s shirt got torn around the collar at some point and now it slid down his shoulder, revealing a hint of a brand-new set of bruises, just below the collarbone. She winced. She shouldn’t expect he got away completely unscathed, should she?

He noticed her stare and wrapped the cloth closer around himself, concealing the damaged skin from her view.

“You don’t have to do that, you know?” she said. “I know you can take a beating gracefully.” _And it somehow makes it even worse._

_[And you assume I care about your opinion because?]_

She smiled and stopped herself just short of rolling her eyes. His swagger was but a very feeble attempt at diversion. “I wouldn’t dare. Why would the great prince of Asgard care about some lowly mortal’s viewpoint?”

He shoot her an unamused glare then turned his head. _[Some prince I make, right now,]_ he said eventually, and puffed out an unhappy laugh. _[The royal court would be overjoyed seeing me… like this,]_ he added, and pointed at his face, then, after a minute deliberation, continued the gesture all over his body.

“Well, you do seem to have an extraordinary talent for pissing people off.”

 _[So I have heard,]_ he said and turned his eyes down. _[Apparently being born was not enough of a misfortune.]_

“Is this about the whole… adoption thing?”

His eyebrows arched up. _[Thor told you.]_

“Yeah.”

_[How much?]_

“Just that you are,” she admitted, “Is there something else I should know?”

 _[Definitely not,]_ he gestured with such an aggressive flair that it made her sure it meant the exact opposite.

“Suit yourself,” she said and added the subject to the mental list of topics that could potentially drive Loki to a boiling rage in seconds. “But there are worse things than being adopted, I hope you know that.”

_[You have no idea what you are talking about.]_

She sighted. “That’s quite likely.”

They sat in silence for a while, anger and frustration slowly draining away from his features, replaced, yet again, with that grim, cold resolution.

 _[I must…]_ he started, and, just like before, let the insecurity melt his resolve.

“Tell me something,” she finished when he wouldn’t. “Yeah, I figured.” She would probably laugh at the utterly dumbfounded look (he belatedly tried to hide) if the anticipation of whatever it was that he wanted her to know didn’t distract her. “So, what is it?”

He sucked in a long breath and studied his fingernails for a long moment. She had to clasp her hands together to keep her fingers from tapping impatiently against her tights.

 _[I know where we are,]_ he managed, finally. The way his shoulders sagged made it clear it cost him a great effort just to get the words out of his system.

“What?!” _That’s good news, right?_ “Since when?”

_[The first night.]_

“Then why…” _Oh… no. Oh, fuck_. “Why didn’t you…” _No, no, no. You can’t be serious. “_ Why did you lie about it?”

His eyes narrowed in a mockery of a smile. _[This is what I do, is it not?]_ he showed, in broad, flourishing moves. _[I lie and I deceive. And you are the fool for expecting anything else. This is what I am.]_

He made a motion like he wanted to get up and leave, but changed his mind and stayed put, his stance tense like a drawn bowstring.

“No, it is not,” she whispered. He looked at her, his surprise thinly veiled behind a deriding sneer. “It is not,” she repeated, louder. “You try very hard to act like you don’t care. Like you’re not bothered with any of this, with being stuck here, with being stripped off your power. With what happens to you.” _Or me_. “You act like this is just another game you play because you have nothing better to do. But you are not as good at it as you think you are, and I know it’s just that. An act. Maybe that would work on your brother, but you’re going to need way more than that to deceive _me_.”

Anger flashed in his eyes and his hands curled into claws and for a second she thought he would pounce and attack her, but it was just a spark that fizzled out before it managed to catch anything on fire. He bent forward, like if finally buckling under the weight on his shoulders, his breaths coming in short bursts. The willful determination seeped away. The protective shields he put around himself peeled off, layer by layer. His arms drooped at his sides, his eyelids fell half-closed and something between a cough and a sob tore from his throat.

She could see the real Loki now. All the exhaustion and hopelessness and pain and fear suddenly evident like welts against his ashen skin; his face awfully expressive when he wasn’t trying to hide his emotions. 

“Are you ready to cut the crap and talk to me, or do you need another minute?”

He closed his eyes all the way. _[There is nothing to find,]_ his hands showed, slowly and meticulously. _[This world is dead. And so am I.]_

She read as much between the lines of his previous answers already, but, no matter how much she thought she was prepared for it, the words still twisted her stomach, made her heart flutter in her chest and ran through her mind like a snowplow, leaving a gaping hole in their wake.

“ _We_ are not dead yet,” she managed to say. “We will figure something out, there’s still a chance that something…”

_[No. There is no one here. There hasn’t been for ages. There are no trade routes. No resources worth mounting an expedition to the system for. This is just a small bit of land in the oceans that cover the whole moon.]_

“How… How can you know that for sure? There must be millions of planets in the universe.”

_[This one is quite prominent. It used to be much like Asgard when she was still a planet. Much like your… Earth, too. Its inhabitants were a lot like your people as well, fickle and hungry for powers that they could not fully understand. Their world was rich, but they craved more. And more, until the world lost its balance. That didn’t stop them. They took what they could until their home had nothing more to give. Until their world was dead.]_

“That does sound awfully like humans,” she said, her voice empty. “How do you know that much about it though?”

_[I have read about it in Asgard’s archives.]_

“Just… randomly?”

_[I used to do a lot of reading. And it is quite a cautionary tale.]_

“What happened to the people?”

_[No one really knows. Some say they all died when the world got knocked out of its orbit and the ice caps melted from their attempt to harness more of the star’s power. Other say their descendants still live, scattered among the stars, unaware of their own heritage. But there is no one left here, that one is certain.]_

“That means they found a way to leave. To get out of this place.”

_[Maybe. There were magic users among them, even if their powers seem very unlike my own.]_

“That… sphere we found, was made by them, right?”

_[Most likely.]_

“So we can use that!”

He raised an eyebrow. _[And how do you suggest we do that?]_

“I don’t know!” she snapped, “but there has to be something! Don’t tell me you’re ready to just… roll over and die.”

_[My readiness has nothing to do with it. I have enough of clarity of mind to know when I cannot win.]_

“But it’s still there! The technology, or magic artefact, or whatever it is. It could be a way out. There ought to be something you can do with that, right? Something we can try…”

 _[We do not even know what it is. And you saw how my attempt ended. It did not respond to me at all. Like there was… nothing._ _Maybe if I could use…]_ he took a deep breath and rubbed his eyes, then ran his hands down his face, his fingers stopping on the muzzle just for a brief moment. _[But I cannot. There’s no way around the block. I have tried everything I could think of, but nothing works. The spell is very thorough. I can’t even access the basic abilities that all the old races share, ones that require no conscious efforts, like healing and the All-Tongue.]_

“All-Tongue?” she said, not sure if she read his spelling properly.

 _[Yes. It is the source of my ability to speak any language and be understood by all in their mother tongues. My… magic language thing, if you like.]_ he added with a jeer. _[That would be the closest translation of the term. Aesir are not too creative in their naming habits.]_

“And it doesn’t work? How are you able to understand me then?”

_[I know your language.]_

“Wait, what?”

_[It is hardly a difficult one.]_

“I know, but that’s not the point. Why would you even bother to learn it if you could use magic to speak it?

_[It is the most dominant language on your planet these days, is it not? And relying on All-Tongue does not always convey the meaning exactly in the manner you intend. I would make a meager god of lies if I were not able to twist the words precisely the way I want them. It is always a useful skill to have.]_

“So, you learn, like, a new language for every place you visit?”

_[Most realms of the nine, yes, and then some others as well.]_

“How many is that?”

_[A few. I seem to have a gift for that.]_

“Yeah,” she said with a small smile, “I’ve noticed.”

_[Using the All-Tongue in the process makes it easier if you know how to work around its limitations.]_

“Is it possible to learn that? For a human?”

_[The All-Tongue?]_

“That, and magic in general. If there’s a way you could teach me, at least some… basics or what else you can call it, then maybe _I_ could do something? Get us out of here? Or do you have to be born with it?”

 _[No, the All-Tongue is not an innate gift but rather… a spark. A seed, planted in your mind when you are born, that develops with you when you grow up and learn to use it. I…]_ He paused to get a strand of hair out of his eyes, only for it to fall back on his face immediately after that. He sighed and left it there, resigned. _[I have no idea how it would work in a mind of a mortal, as no one ever cared enough to try. Still, it matters little. It cannot be done after infancy, as it would shatter a fully developed mind. And I would not be able to give it to you without accessing my powers, were it a viable option.]_

“Is it the same with magic?”

_[Yes and no. It requires a more deliberate involvement, but the timeline is similar. It took me longer to learn the use of the simplest of spells than you were even alive.]_

“You’d be surprised,” she muttered and ignored the way his eyebrows arched at that. It was not important anyway. “So, it’s not something a human can learn at all then?”

_[There are certain… people on Earth, capable of harnessing the powers, at least to an extent. It usually involves a shortcut, in one way or another. Using an external, material power source, a powerful artefact or premade formulas that are easier to execute. And even those limited masteries take years to achieve.]_

“Like what SHIELD was doing with the Tesseract?”

_[Among other things, yes.]_

“When you speak of years, what exactly do you mean? How long is a year in Asgard?” she asked, hopefully. Because maybe, just maybe, there was an error in his calculations somewhere and they still had time to do something, before…

 _[It bears a little importance which time measure I use. A year in Asgard is shorter than Earth’s, but not significantly so. It is still the time I do not have,]_ he said, and his fingers curled and uncurled nervously at his side, a ghost of a chuckle leaving his nostrils. _[Besides, I do not know if I would make a good teacher. I have never taught anyone. No one would be willing to learn from me, for fear of my…]_ He paused and shook his head. _[I does not matter.]_

“You could still tell me, you know.”

_[Maybe some other time.]_

She accepted the answer. It didn’t take much to notice he was not used to being so… open and the closer the conversation came to personal matters, the more obvious it was. “If it makes you feel better, I think you’d make a great teacher. Not a patient one necessarily, but you do have a way with words that makes people pay attention.” _Even without the ability to speak them._

He cringed and let out a small, frustrated noise, like there was a jab hidden in her words, not praise. _[It is not befitting a prince to become a scholar. If I knew then what I know now I would not bother and it all might just go that much easier for everyone.]_

She wasn’t sure what he meant, but the dejection in his eyes gave her enough of an idea to not ask more about it.

“Is there a chance someone would come looking for us? For you?”

He cowered at that suggestion and a violent, panicked twitch ran through his face, then he looked at her warily. _[Who do you mean?]_

“I don’t know, Thor maybe? I know you said he can’t but maybe someone else from Asgard…

_[We are too far away. Heimdall’s eyes cannot see this far.]_

“Heimdall?” she asked. She was sure she has heard the name before but couldn’t remember the context all that well.

_[The gatekeeper of Asgard. He can see every soul in the nine realms. If I could use my powers, I might be able to reach out to him, but that alone would not mean much. The dark paths do not extend beyond the branches of the Nine, so without the Bifrost there is no way to travel here. And it will take long years for it to be fully regrown.]_

“Regrown? Is it, like, a living organism?”

_[It is a crystal that needs to feed on cosmic energies to grow. It takes time and cannot be rushed.]_

“I bet you’re having second thoughts about wrecking it up then,” she said, trying to lighten the mood a bit. She miscalculated, as it earned her only a scornful glare.

_[It was Thor’s doing, technically speaking, not mine.]_

“Really?”

_[He did have a reason, even if the merit of it is debatable.]_

“Okay. So, no space bridge. Thor was still able to come to Earth, even without it.”

_[It was a spell, an old and dark magic, that… Odin used to send him there. It’s extremely energy consuming, even on shorter distances, like between Asgard and Earth, and it would require long recovery afterwards. That is why Thor needed the cube to take us back, Odin could not muster the strength for another spell that soon. I highly doubt it he would bother with it for one traitor and one petty mortal, even if he knew where we are.]_

It didn’t escape her attention that it was his own father that Loki was talking about. Apparently, there was no love lost between those two as well, although she couldn’t be sure if it was just a bias on Loki’s side or a realistic assessment of the situation.

“There’s one thing I don’t understand,” she said, after it became evident he wouldn’t dwell on the subject. “Why did you choose to tell me _now_? You’ve clearly decided I’m better off not knowing when you first found out. So, what changed?”

He blinked at her, uncertain. Flustered even. It was an interesting look on him. _[You deserve to know.]_

“Yeah, duh. But why _now_?”

 _[You are… kind to me, when you have no reason to be,]_ he said and turned his head, as if not able to bear her gaze anymore. _[You gave me a voice when it was taken. It is a common courtesy to… inform you of all the important details.]_

“It’s been… a while since someone used that adjective to describe me,” she mumbled. It was meant to come out a lot more light-hearted than it did, but it didn’t seem like he noticed.

 _Kind_. After it took two instances of him saving her life and a mental breakdown for her to even consider removing his cuffs. After she prodded and goaded him on every occasion she got, without being all that inconspicuous about it. Yeah, Loki’s standards for “kind” were considerably lower than what the definition of the word would suggest, and that alone gave her enough of an insight into his past to earn some compassion.

“It would still make it a lot easier for you if you’ve just told me right away. You could skip the wild goose chase, all the days of pointlessly wandering around, without a real target or purpose.”

_[You would know you have no use for me.]_

“Uhm, what?”

_[You would not need me anymore.]_

She blinked. “You… you thought _I_ would be the one to abandon _you_? What gave you that idea?”

_[You thought you needed me to get back home. I cannot help you with that. You do not need me.]_

“Okay, I feel like there’s a serious misconception in your brain about how the last days went. I would be dead, many times over, without your help. I can’t even find food on my own. And even if I figured that in some miraculous burst of genius, the nightmares I can’t even get out of on my own would be the end of me. If there is a power imbalance here, it’s obviously skewed the other way around. It’s you who would be better off without me. My presence gains you nothing, only puts you in danger.”

Outbetting an opponent on who’s more useless in an arrangement was another one of those things she thought she would never do, but that was one more rule that seemed to no longer apply. And yeah, those might not be the wisest words she ever uttered, but she didn’t care. There was something he wasn’t telling her, and she couldn’t, for all that’s saint, puzzle out what his reasons were.

He kept his gaze fixed on the horizon. _[I didn’t want to be alone again,]_ he said simply and wrapped his arms around himself, like he suddenly could feel the chill in the air.

\---

They retreated into the cave soon after, her thoughts scrambling desperately, trying to sort out all the information she just received.

They were stuck. There was no way home. Not now, not ever. _Fuck_.

Maybe Loki was being a fatalist again. Or just overly dramatic. Or wanted to scare her…

What would be the point of that though? He had her fully depended on him, it made no sense to sever that leash now if he still wanted her around. And it looked like he did. No, pretending this was just some intricate plan she couldn’t crack had no other purpose than giving herself false hope. Loki was serious and he was telling the truth and she knew it.

_Fuck._

The sun has set, and she got a small, smoky fire going. The smoke billowed inside the cave and stung her eyes before it escaped through the opening. It still beat sitting in the dark.

Loki sat next to her, his back propped against the wall, his eyes shiny in the dancing firelight. She considered telling him to take the first turn before she bit her tongue. They didn’t need to hold watches anymore. There was no one here to attack them.

“You are wrong, by the way,” she said instead.

_[About what?]_

“About the All-Tongue. You said everyone hears it in their native language. That’s not true. I could hear you in English, and it is not my first language. Russian is. Was.”

 _[That is… curious,]_ he said, and his brows furrowed. _[It uses the preexisting cognitive structures in your mind to give you the meaning. It is not common for those to change. Then again, someone learning a new language to the point it replaces their native one is not common either. There are different types of magic and various technological advancements you can rely on instead.]_

“Aww, are you saying I’m special?” she smirked.

 _[People of Earth are, in a sense,]_ he admitted. _[There is hardly a world as everchanging and as varied as yours. It is rare for a civilization to develop multiple languages to such an extent, and, even if that happens, one becomes so dominant in the end that it wipes out all the rest, sooner or later, usually before the race is ready to make a contact with the outside world.]_

“Are there some rules for that? A cosmic law or something, that dictates when the society is… ripe enough?”

_[Kind of. There are certain steps each civilization goes through and it’s seen as a needless interference to meddle with those that are not far enough in their cycle. At least that is the theory, it goes both ways in practice.]_

“Where are we then, as humanity, on that ladder?” she asked.

_[It does not matter. The rest of the Nine has decided, long ago, that your location is too strategically important to leave the control of it to blind luck. Others did as well, like the Kree. That is why Laufey lead the Jotnar in an invasion to claim your world for themselves and why Odin did not hesitate to send his armies when that happened. That is why…]_

“That one was real?”

 _[Yes,]_ Loki said and shot her a sideway glance, surprised she even asked.

“What? There’s all sorts of weird shit in the legends, you can’t expect me to take it all at face value,” she ranted. “What else is true then? I assume most of the origin stories are bullshit, they do not hold any water, but other stuff? Like, I don’t know, freaky horse sex?”

She wasn’t sure why it was the tale that popped into her head right away, but there were two prominent ones she could remember that connected directly to Loki. It was either that or the one about being locked away for eternity, suffering an endless torment for his crimes, with caves and snakes and all. And, looking at him now, the latter was far more likely to carry a grain of truth. So yeah, from the two she felt like it was safer to mention the horse.

 _[Whoever was the source of that one must not like me very much,]_ he said, a hint of smile tugging at the corners of his eyes. _[Although I cannot imagine why. I was just a kid when those were written.]_

“How old are you, anyway? If you don’t mind me asking.”

 _[Fifteen hundred years, give or take. That is…]_ His expression turned pensive, _[around a thousand and fifty, counting in yours.]_

She whistled. “Well, you do hold up surprisingly well for your age.”

He breathed out a small snicker. _[I am sure it can look like that from a mortal’s perspective.]_

There was no real viciousness behind the words, so she just smiled. She poked the fire with a stick, a motion born of compulsion. It meant having something to do with her hands and made the pause in conversation feel more natural.

“So… what are we going to do now?”

He immediately understood what she was talking about. _[I don’t know,]_ he replied, and the smirk was gone from his face in an instant. _[Do you have something in mind?]_

“I would like to… go on, if you don’t mind. Check further along the coast. Just… to be sure.”

 _[Okay,]_ he agreed, but it was obvious he was convinced it was pointless. _[Don’t get your hopes up.]_

“I won’t.”

She didn’t.


	14. Stages

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which a promise of great consequence is being made.

“Do not wake me if I don’t call for you, okay?”

Loki looked up at her, his eyebrows drawn, but still nodded.

“I want to see if I can actually talk to that thing, now that something obviously has changed,” she explained, “and maybe I’ll be able to find out what that last time was about.”

She lay down and tried to relax, to ignore the chaos in her mind. But the crackling of the fire, splashing of waves and howling wind did little to drown her screaming thoughts.

It was all pointless, all just a fake game show she was dragged into against her will, to be the butt of the joke, without even a slight chance of winning. What was even worse, she couldn’t find it in herself to hate Loki for that. She should. She knew she should. He lied to her, tricked her, made her futilely chase a target that was not there and never was. And for what?

_I didn’t want to be alone again._

She wondered how his voice would sound like, without the vitriol and contempt permeating every word and embedded in his every sentence. Would he even say it out loud if he could? Or was the buffer of the sign language the only reason he didn’t keep it to himself?

She would never know, would she?

_You must still try, Natasha. There is nothing else left to do but try._

\---

She did fall asleep eventually.

There were no caverns in her dreams this time. Just an oppressive, sticky darkness and the ground opening to swallow her whole and waves coming down and closing above her and water filling her lungs. And Loki’s lifeless body floating in the dark ocean, his eyes empty. Dead.

It felt real.

She woke up with a jolt once again.

\---

 _[Are you sure you do not want to split up?]_ Loki asked when they were getting ready to move on at dawn.

She glowered at him. “Did you really not get that the first seven times I told you?”

_[One.]_

“What?”

 _[You only told me once. You also told me you will rip out my – what was that, spleen? – if I ever touch you again and yet you did not. I am just making sure you mean it this time.]_ The tentative anticipation was mixed with just a pinch of amusement in his eyes and she wasn’t sure how serious he was. Not entirely, that’s a given, but he wouldn’t ask if it didn’t bother him still.

“I was tired and angry, okay? I don’t think I would be able to rip… anything from you, even if I tried. And no. I don’t want to split up. Just… Just promise me you won’t lie to me again.”

He blinked at her.

“Can you do that? Make a promise?”

_[Will you trust it if I do?]_

“I guess we’ll have to find out,” she said. 

_[I promise I will never lie to you again,]_ he said, his face thoughtful.

She believed him and that realization hit her like a wrecking ball, right to the chest.

\---

In a way, nothing has changed. She pushed the thoughts – the dreadful “you’re not going home” chant – to the back of her mind and just focused on putting one foot in front of the other. It worked, more or less.

The rain has stopped. The sky was spotty with puffy cumulus clouds, painted gold by sunrays. They looked like those mango sundaes from the ice-cream parlor on Forty-seventh. Oh, she would kill for one of those right about now.

They were walking uphill, meandering between the rocky cliff walls, finding slopes mild enough to climb and the progress was slow. She briefly considered abandoning the idea of a further journey, realizing that every exertion put Loki closer to the inevitable, but she knew she wouldn’t be able to stay in one place for long without losing her mind. She suspected Loki wouldn’t either. As much as he insisted their situation is hopeless, she doubted he was ready to just sit down and wait for starvation to claim his life, however long that could take. He would probably present her with a timeline for that if she asked, but she didn’t. She didn’t want to know. It changed nothing.

They reached the peak point of the range by midday. She stopped, her hands on her hips, her breath uneven from the long hike, and she just soaked in the view.

The beach was even broader on the other side of the cape, just half a mile of the same white, fine-grained sand, and it curved slightly inland.

“It is really just an island?” she asked.

_[Depends on your definition, I suppose.]_

“How big is it?”

_[I’m not sure. There were no maps. There is no point in charting the lands if no one travels here.]_

“Are there any others?”

_[Probably.]_

“How far?”

 _[I don’t know,]_ he said with an annoyed huff, _[far enough to be unreachable for us.]_

She rubbed her eyes. “We are not only stuck on an alien world, but we are also stuck on a deserted island on an alien world,” she mused. “That must be some new record in shit luck.”

\---

They set camp at the foot of the bluffs on the other side of the cape, where another stream ran towards the sea. It was some time since they found the last one, so it offered a much-appreciated alternative to puddle water. She made sure to stay close to a potential evacuation route leading back onto the cliffs. She knew it wouldn’t always be possible to have those, but she was sticking to having one for as long as they could.

“I’ve been thinking…”

_[That’s new.]_

“Really, we are at cheap puns now? Fine, whatever, I’m not _that_ interested anyway,” she snapped, put on a butthurt face and patiently waited for his curiosity to win over. It didn’t take long.

_[What is it?]_

She hid a small smirk of satisfaction. “That first day, when I tried to remove the muzzle and it ended up hurting you, you said you wanted me to try. Why was that?”

 _[I already knew I cannot do it on my own. I hoped it would have… an escape clause, in case of…]_ He put down his hands and took in a sharp breath. He really didn’t need to elaborate further.

“Is it… uhm, a common practice? For a spell to have those?”

_[No.]_

“Then why would this one be different?”

 _[It stays dormant if I leave it alone, but if I even think about fighting it…]_ A wince ran across his features. She wasn’t sure if it was just his reaction to the memory or if the mention alone was enough for the spell to flare up. _[It means it has a way of sensing intentions. Reads my thoughts, at least to some extent, and reacts accordingly.]_

“Why does it matter?”

_[When Thor was stripped of his powers and exiled after he restarted the war with Jotunheimr, Odin sent his hammer along with him to Earth, enchanted with a spell that would return Thor’s powers if his life was in danger…]_

“Oh.”

_[As I said, I should have known better.]_

“I’m sorry.”

He looked at her, his gaze scrutinizing. She must’ve been too slow at schooling her expression. _[I do not need your pity.]_

“Good, because you are not getting any. And you need to learn the difference between pity and compassion,” she said, quietly.

_[There is not much in my experience.]_

“Maybe that’s because you’re too quick to assume people think the worst of you.”

He breathed out a cynical laugh. _[And why shouldn’t I? This is where I end up eventually anyway.]_

It was a defense mechanism, plain and simple. To always expect the worst meant never being disappointed when that outcome ultimately comes into being. But it also served as a self-fulfilling prophecy. Why would he push himself to strive for something better, to _be_ better, if he was certain he was going to fail anyway? “You’ve got to cut yourself some slack from time to time.”

_[Do you even listen to what you are saying? You’re wasting your so-called compassion on someone who came to your world and killed your people. And for what purpose? To flaunt your moral superiority? To feel better about yourself? To show how much of a hero you are so your valor can shine all that brighter compared to…]_

_Light breeze._ “Why do I get a feeling you stopped talking about me somewhere around the second sentence there?”

Loki’s anger wavered and dissolved into something more raw and desperate. His fingers twitched at his sides, then he moved his hands, slowly. _[It does not matter.]_

“You keep on saying that, but I somehow feel like it still does, to you.”

_[And when did that ever stop anyone?]_

“I don’t know, but we can talk about it if you want.”

_[Isn’t it what we are doing?]_

“No, what we’re doing is me needling you and you getting increasingly more frustrated and angrier, until you snap out at me or go into a depression episode. I mean an actual conversation. Two reasonable adults, talking like civil people.”

_[Why do you care?]_

_Because it gets old seeing you being angry at the whole world and yourself all the time. Because I can’t figure out why you act like you do now, yet you did what you did. Because I want to know who you really are_. _Because you need someone to listen._ “Because playing an armchair psychologist for ex-supervillains is my favorite pastime.”

_[Ex?]_

“I haven’t seen you do much villainy these days.”

_[I might be up to something even right now. You would never see it coming.]_

“Are you?”

He chuckled. _[No.]_

“That’s settles it then,” she said with a smile. He shook his head in a feigned disbelief. “Loki?”

He turned, sharply, and looked at her like it was the first time he saw her in his life, the motion so sudden and the stare so intense she immediately forgot the question she was about to ask.

“What?”

_[You called me by my name.]_

“So?”

 _[You never did that before.]_

“The hell I did.”

He shook his head. _[No, you did not.]_

 _Hmm_. She tried recalling whether he was right but couldn’t say for sure. She did call out his name on the rock, but he wasn’t around to hear that, and she couldn’t think about any other instance. Maybe he was correct, he had an alarmingly good memory, and he was paying attention, apparently. There was no one else around, so it wasn’t like she needed to address him in any way. “Is that a problem?”

He shrugged.

“Does it… offend you? I mean, for a mortal to call you by your name?” she asked, genuinely curious by now, “I can stop if it’s that important.”

_[No. It is just strange to hear it.]_

“You’re trying to tell me you had that name for a millennium, and it still sounds weird to you? From my own experience, and believe me, I have plenty, you get used to a name in a couple of days at most.”

 _[It was not like that until…]_ he paused, and his hands froze in the air, halfway through the sign.

She stopped herself from encouraging him to go on. It took some effort.

 _[Very recently,]_ he finished, after a moment. _[Now_ _I know the real meaning of it.]_

“So what? Those are bullshit anyway. My name means ‘born on a Christmas Day’. I was born in July,” she said, not sure if he understood what she was talking about, but he took it in strides, which meant he either did or just didn’t care enough to ask for clarifications, “and I’m not even religious. People just pick whatever sounds nice to them.” Well, she wasn’t even sure it was her real name. The surname wasn’t, that she knew.

_[It is not like that everywhere. Names are important in Aesir culture. You have one for as long as you live.]_

“Well, that’s how names work in general. But I guess getting stuck with one you hate for a couple thousand years might be annoying,” she admitted. “Can’t you just change it though? Like, legally?”

_[Odin is the law in Asgard. He gave me that name.]_

“Just tell people to call you something else then?”

_[It is not that easy. Names carry power and status.]_

“You should really consider moving to Earth then, where your power and your status is decided solely by your bank account,” she said bitterly. “If you have money, the people will call you whatever the hell you wish.”

_[That does not sound great either. And it is not the point. I would still know my real name and what it signifies. This cannot be changed, no matter how much I want it to.]_

“Uhm, it’s still just a name. How bad could it be?”

He shrugged.

“Loki!?”

He glared at her, half angry, half amused.

“Listen. It’s okay if you don’t want to talk about it,” she said, “but milling it over and over in your head won’t help either.”

For a moment she thought that’s all she was going to learn on the subject. Then he sighed and his hands moved. _[It is not an Aesir name.]_

“And it took you that long to find out?” she blurted out, surprised, “I thought you’re the clever one in your family.” It came out harsh, but he didn’t take the offence, for a change.

 _[No_ , _I knew that part. But I misunderstood the reason why I got it.]_

“Wait, that’s the adoption thing again, isn’t it?” she asked. He eyed her with a deep frown, so she clarified, “I had no idea it’s such a recent revelation for you.”

He looked away, still frowning.

“Have you talked about it with anyone before?”

_[You could say that.]_

“It didn’t go too well?”

_[No.]_

“Families can be hard,” she said, “or so I’ve heard. It’s not like I have much record in that area.” She paused. She knew she was walking on an extremely thin ice here. “I’m sure you’d be able to figure it out if you wanted.”

_[It is not something that can be solved. I never was part of that family. I know this now.]_

“Oh, come on, you can’t say that. No matter what you do, Thor still cares and I’m sure your parents…”

 _[I do not expect you to understand,]_ Loki cut her off. There was an explosive anger rapidly seeping back into his features.

“Try me!”

 _[I never was a part of that family,]_ he repeated, his moves suddenly quick and erratic. _[I was never meant to be. I am not even…]_

He grunted, got up and started walking away, his hands clenched into fists.

“You’re not even what?!” she yelled after him. He stopped and whipped around to face her.

 _[A person,]_ he signed and stormed off towards the sea.

_\---_

She didn’t follow. Not only because she wanted to give him time to fume alone and come to his senses on his own, but also because she had no idea what to make of what he just told her. It was another one of weird Loki things, some stray idea that took root in his crazy brain without any sensible reason, it had to be.

The subject was eerily familiar, too. She clearly remembered the conversation she had with Clint, just before… The last time they spoke. Gods, it felt so long ago. The memory was still vivid, but it felt like a flashback from a previous life or from a surreal dream. Like it happened to someone else, not to her.

Because it was the last time, wasn’t it? There was no way she was getting off this world. There was only this damned island, the blue sea, and the unknown, foreign sky above. And the silence.

And Loki, with all his little grudges and quirks, with his list of secrets and grievances too long to count. At least until…

She had to keep it together. To think only about that next step and not of where it could take her. She had to be strong.

The tears came stinging, uninvited. She pressed her fists to her eyes but even that couldn’t stop them. She took a deep breath, fighting against the tightness in her chest. A sob rocked her body.

If Loki thought he didn’t deserve to be called a person, what was she now, bawling her heart out over her pointless existence? Everything that meant anything to her, that gave her any purpose, all that she held important was out there, somewhere beyond the stars, on a speck of dust orbiting its lonely star on the other side of the universe. She was nothing without it.

Tears ran freely now, and she didn’t have the strength to fight them anymore. Loki should be here to sneer at her. She deserved to be laughed at for this childish outburst, for that weakness that’s been creeping inside her mind since… Forever. It was always there, just below the surface, waiting to rise up and ooze through the cracks at the first sign of frailty.

Loki could suck it up and hold his head high walking around with a ticking death sentence and she couldn’t keep it together, because she won’t get to see her friends? How pathetic was that? How could she ever hope to keep up?

She pulled out one of the guns. Its weight was familiar, comforting. An escape. A quick, painless end. One quick bullet to the brain and it’s all gone. No more worrying about not going back to Earth, about Loki; a vision of a lonely future cut short before it could even happen.

Not that her existence mattered much anyway.

Oh, how well she could see it now, with that sliver of an extra perspective. Humans were indeed like mayflies at the brink of a summer day. Ants, swarming about their hills of concrete and glass, oblivious of all the wide expanse of the world around them, chasing their trite desires and fighting their little wars for a few fleeting decades before they dropped dead, just to be replaced with another generation, doomed to repeat the same mistakes, over and over. Not even something worth paying attention to.

She used to think herself better somehow, because she could do things not everyone could, and she dedicated the last couple of years to serving humanity and saving it from threats. To protecting it from harm and keeping the enemies at bay.

But those were just vapid conciliations, lies she told herself so she could sleep at night. All she was doing was trying to make up for all the pain and destruction and death she caused. She was wiping the red off her ledger. Like if she could ever do that.

How did it go? “You lie and kill in the service of liars and killers.” She tried hard to disregard the words then, but they still somehow resonated with her. Maybe because she knew all along there was an intrinsic truth to them, she knew that even before he said it. She never truly broke free, she just switched one master for another with a slightly nicer looking flag. The collar fit just as snugly.

And yet she never once stopped to wonder if it’s even worth it, if the price she is paying isn’t too high. Maybe it was.

She released the safety lever.

She _was_ free now. Yet all she yearned for was to be back in her kennel.

And maybe it was obvious, from Loki’s perspective, that all they can do is to run in circles, fight and kill each other in petty squabbles over scraps. That they needed to be put against the wall just to be able to work together for five fucking minutes at a time, and – even then – the biggest threat still came from within, not from the outside. Maybe that _freedom from freedom_ he gloated about was really the mercy they needed to keep them from running it all down to the ground…

She decocked and holstered the gun. Shit, she really let Loki get into her head, didn’t she?

_\---_

Loki stood at the edge of the beach where the land met the sea, his toes buried in the sand, waves lapping around his ankles. The sun was setting in all its crimson glory, half of its face already behind the horizon. The surge has started; it wouldn’t be long before they’d have to move.

He looked at her as she approached, but if he noticed her eyes were still red from crying, he didn’t let it out.

“Why does it look like that?” she asked and pointed her chin at the horizon, “the star, I mean. It is so unlike Earth’s sun.”

_[It’s dying.]_

“Oh. How long does it have?”

_[I don’t know. Longer than us. Longer than me.]_

He looked at her again. It wasn’t one of his usual stares, one that made her feel like being weighted, sized and appraised. No, he was looking at _her_ and his green eyes were piercing and focused, even if his expression stayed neutral.

She didn’t know what to say. What one _can_ even say to that? She knew he wasn’t expecting empty placations and promises that could never be fulfilled. She just stayed silent and watched the waves lick the shore, getting further and further inland with every swell.

 _[Aren’t you going to ask?]_ he said after a while.

“Depends. Will you answer if I do?

_[I am undecided.]_

“I told you once and I’m telling you again: I’m not going to force you. This is not an interrogation. Yes, I would love you to tell me, not because I’m curious… well, that too, but it’s not the main reason. I can see it’s something that sits in your mind like a shard of glass. You won’t start healing until you remove it. And sometimes can’t get those out without telling someone,” she said, then added, more quietly, “and I am the only one here.”

The nonplussed expression gave his face a lopsided look that was almost charming, in a way.

“Whatever it is that you want or not want to tell me… It’s not going to change how things are between us. I know what you’re capable of. I’m aware there must be a lot of it in your past as well,” she assured, “and I’ve made my peace with it.” Saying it out loud made her realize she actually meant it, as weird as it sounded. It wasn’t forgiveness, not necessarily, but “peace” was a good word. She accepted what he did and moved on. “Whatever it is, I’m not going to judge you. That is what I can promise.”

He let out a sharp breath, his fingers twisting into his clothes. He was at battle with himself.

He worked to relax his stance in a conscious effort. _[It is a long story,]_ he said finally. _[And you would need some context for it first.]_

“It’s not like we have anywhere to be right now.”

His shoulders dropped in resignation. _[It might get too wet here in a moment for us to stand and talk.]_

She rolled her eyes. “Fine, I’ll get a fire going. _Away_ from the tideline.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is it obnoxiously obvious that Natasha never calls Loki by his name to his face until this point or did I manage to conceal it properly?


	15. Bare

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which overdue frankness leads to things getting physical.

_[Asgard is considered the oldest of the nine realms, although her origins are lost in the mists of the long-forgotten history. Some say the Aesir are the descendants of the deities of the times before time, carrying sparks of the same godhood. Some others claim they evolved, like humans, or came from some even older civilization from beyond the stars,]_ Loki started his story. _[What everyone agrees upon is that their unique location on the crossroads of cosmic paths, the intersection of universal energies, granted the world immense advantages, and, when the time came, its inhabitants learned how to harness those powers and how to travel the branches of the worlds’ tree.]_

“That’s the… Yggdrasil, right?” She remembered the name both from the myths and from the unconsolidated ramblings of Foster intern’s testimony after New Mexico. Or maybe it was only the latter and she just googled it afterwards. “It is not actually a tree, is it?”

_[No, but it’s represented as one in iconography quite often. It is a fitting depiction, in a metaphorical way, even if not very accurate.]_

“Form over function? Yeah, I’ve been getting the vibe. Capes, helmets with antlers and all.”

 _[It’s a traditional warrior’s outfit,]_ he said and eyed her reprovingly. _[It’s enchanted and leagues beyond anything that your primitive mortal technology can muster.]_

It looked like she hit another sensitive spot. She sent him a reconciliatory smile. “Don’t get your hackles up, I get it. Your pretty face is too much of a national treasure to get smashed with one blunt object or another. Totally understandable.”

The look she got as a response couldn’t be classified as anything but plain murderous and it made her suspect that not many people got to call Loki “pretty” as a joke and still live afterwards. _[Do you want to know the rest or not?]_

“I do, I’m sorry, I’m not going to interrupt again.” _Unless it’s important. Or too good of a joke to pass up_ , she didn’t add but still decided to use the rule at her own discretion.

_[On Yggdrasil’s branches lay the other eight realms. The Alfheimr, home of the Ljosalfar, masters of magic and artisanry, is the closest to Asgard and was the first to be conquered and forced into submission. Next lays the Vanaheimr, the world of the Vanir, warriors and seers. Despite their lack of internal, structured government their people still proved to be worthy opponents. The war lasted for decades and cost Asgard greatly. Even now, after thousands upon thousands of years under iron Aesir rule, they are the first to rise up and revolt against it at the slightest chance. I’d wager a bet there’s an insurgency – or a couple – on Vanaheimr right now, as Asgard is weakened with the destruction of the Bifrost.]_

“A feisty bunch?”

_[Feisty or independent and very unhappy with how Asgard is treating their home as a bushel of grain, to be taken from as one sees fit. Entirely depends on who you ask.]_

“I get the idea.”

_[Next is the Nidavellir, or what’s left of it, inhabited by the Dwarves. They are mostly craftsmen and merchants, masters of both spellcraft and technology. This is where Thor’s hammer was made, as well as Heimdall’s sword and Odin’s Gungrir, the royal spear, the sign of the kingship. The Dwarves are skilled but not a warrior race, so they surrendered without an open war and swore fiefdom to Asgard, buying their lives with the fruits of their craft.]_

“What’s left of it? Is it also a piece of rock in space?”

_[No. Their sun was dying, much like this world’s star is, and the planet turned uninhabitable. They’ve constructed a station around the star, to harness the last of its power. Some still live there, even if it’s a far cry from the splendor of their old home. Those who didn’t decide to stay left, to find a new place for themselves away from the Nine.]_

“What will happen when their sun dies for good?”

_[I don’t know. But Asgard will have to find a new source for their trinkets, just like we… they had to for rare metals and other elements that came as Nidavellir’s tribute in the past.]_

“Where do they get those now?”

_[It used to be conquest, but it’s mostly trade now. Asgard still possesses riches beyond imagination and many come to offer their goods to get a taste of it.]_

“That sounds surprisingly reasonable, considering all the rest.”

_[I suppose. It’s mostly Odin trying to change his image from a ruthless conqueror of the bygone millennia to the benevolent protector of all the Nine, to strengthen his position. Diplomacy and trade are right up his alley. But most of the races of the Nine are long lived and it takes a long time to forget the crimes of the past.]_

“What about the other realms?” she asked before that particular train of thought managed to send Loki on a downward spiral. “You mentioned four, that leaves Earth and four more, right?” Whatever point Loki was heading towards to, he was taking a very scenic route. She didn’t mind at all. She doubted many humans knew even a fraction of what he was so voluntarily divulging. She should be taking notes.

_[Muspellsheimr is the land of the great fire giant Surtur and his spawn of demons. He is ancient and powerful and the cause why Asgard is no longer a planet. He was too strong to be killed and it took a lot of sacrifices to beat him into submission, so for now the main course of action is leaving him alone and just preventing him from leaving the world that’s been made his prison. There is a prophecy that says Surtur will rise again and finish what he started, dealing a final blow to Asgard, but whether that ever happens or not remains to be seen. Even dauntless adventurers like Thor and the bunch of lackeys he calls friends stay clear away from Muspellsheimr, there’s nothing there to find but a fiery death and agony._

_[Niflheimr is the place of mists, winds and cold that stays mostly uninhabited, other than the shores of Nastrond, where Fafnir and his people reside. He fashions himself a king, but he and his marauders are nothing more than a warband of mercenaries, a mixed-race company of outcasts and other assorted refuse without a place on any other world._

_[It is not a nice place to live, the air is poisonous upon longer exposures to most of the elder races and deadly for mortals. It is often called the land of the dead for that very reason and some even say the lands of Hel are where your soul goes if you die the death of a coward and not meet a glorious end in battle, only one that allows you into the halls of Valhalla.]_

“You believe in all that?”

Loki shrugged. _[I would rather not. I guess I will find out soon enough.]_

She swallowed the lump in her throat and kept her mouth shut.

 _[The next realm, Svartalfheimr, used to be the home of the Dokkalfar, the Dark Elves,]_ he carried on, either not registering or ignoring her reaction _. [It was destroyed in Bor’s times. He was Odin’s father and the previous king of Asgard,]_ he added before she opened her mouth to ask. _[It’s now a desolate wasteland and only the ruins serve as a reminder there used to be people living there.]_

“What happened?”

_[War, as per usual. The Dokkalfar’s mastery in magic was unparalleled and they refused to bend their knees. There was no way for Asgard to win a lengthy campaign against them, as they possessed both greater numbers and quite a formidable power and technology. But they could not be left unchecked, else they would become contenders for the control of the rest of the Nine. So Bor found a way to put a permanent end to that. It is not clear how it all came to pass, but the rumor has it that there was a powerful artifact involved that led to their total destruction.]_

“Total destruction? What do you mean…”

_[They all died and Svartalfheimr was turned into what it is now – an unhabitable desert. If there were witnesses to what happened left alive, they chose to keep their secrets of how it went and what become of the artifact to their graves. The fact is that Bor perished in the aftermath soon after and Odin became the All-father in his stead and even asking questions about the subject is highly discouraged.]_

“I bet there’s a lot of rumors about that as well.”

_[Yes, but saying them out loud is a sure-fire way to get branded as a traitor of Asgard. Followed by a prompt exile, more often than not. Or more severe repercussions if you are insistent enough. Like a swift execution, at least if you are lucky.]_

She blinked. “Thor somehow forgot to mention that part.”

_[He was never enthusiastic about learning history.]_

“Can’t say I’m surprised.”

_[That might be why he took such a liking to Midgard. Earth. There is not too much history to be had and what there is, is often lost to the mortal memory anyway.]_

“We got better at keeping track lately, in case you didn’t notice.”

_[Your ancestors made similar claims, yet you’re surprised each time someone visits your world. And you used to get many of those in the past. Earth was treated as fair game for as long as Aesir records reach, by everyone who had a way of travelling there. Only after the hordes of Jotunheimr tried claiming it for themselves Odin put his hand down and forbid other races from interfering.]_

“Jotunheimr,” she tried, but the name refused to roll off her tongue smoothly, stumbling upon too many consonants. “That’s the last one, right?”

_[Yes. The world located on the branches between Asgard and Midgard and your closest neighbor of the Nine. It is the land of the Frost Giants, cruel place of darkness and permafrost, as lawless and savage as its inhabitants. It was not an important strategical point for the Aesir rulers of old, as it offered no valuable resources and the beasts that populated it deemed too crude to be worth controlling. Their sheer numbers and the innate gift of ice magic would mean protracted and unrewarding war Asgard had no reserves for after their campaigns against Alfheimr and the Vanir. So they have been left alone. And, like every vermin in the universe, they’ve only multiplied and grew stronger, unsupervised._

_[After the failure of Svartalfheimr, with the crown freshly placed on his temples, Odin needed a show of strength, something that would reinforce his position and safely consolidate the power in his hand, leaving no doubts about his capabilities as the leader. And what’s a better target than the hive of monsters that been breeding just under Asgardian noses?_

_[The strike needed to be quick and decisive, another prolonged battle was out of the question, with Aesir strength still diminished. The archives are murky about what exactly transpired, but from what I’ve gathered, Odin has sent an elite troop of Einherjar, the Asgardian army, to kill the Jotnar chieftain and steal the relic, the Casket of the Ancient Winters, the main source of their power. Only he miscalculated, it did not work the way he planned and instead of a swift, preemptive strike Odin got himself another drawn-out, open conflict, without actual means to fight it._

_[Only then Odin tried his hand at diplomacy, but it was too late for that. Even in their limited intelligence, the Jotnar knew that they now held power over Asgard and used it to their own advantage, mounting lighting raids on Asgard’s vassals, often successfully, with Odin unable to respond in a timely manner._

_[They never dared to attack Asgard directly though and the matters have settled somewhat. Seemingly against all odds, things looked up, for a time. Odin still had to deal with an occasional Jotnar trouble, but his actions in other areas were enough for people to put that blunder behind them and trust in him as their leader, especially after his marriage with Frigg of the Vanir, daughter of Freyr and Freya, the closest thing to rulers Vanaheimr had at that time. The union brought Odin his firstborn, his crown prince, and Asgard rejoiced, welcoming Thor, the golden son of the golden realm._

_[The merriment was short-lived, as the Jotnar used the celebration and the confusion that resulted from it to mount an attack on Midgard, to expand their lands and further their leverage over Asgard. Odin couldn’t have that, it would mean losing the upper hand he just got with that tentative union with the Vanir and leaving Midgard to fall under Laufey’s rule would only mean they had access to new resources and potential allies.]_

“You said a few times that Earth is an important strategical point, but you never said why.”

_[The actual location in the universe is the most meaningful factor. The Nine are connected by the Yggdrasil, but they are not close in the physical sense. That makes Earth the gateway to that part of the galaxy. And it is quite a busy part, which you’d have noticed if you paid attention. The outskirts of the Kree empire lay just a quick hyperspace jump away and one of their interstellar nodes is located on the orbit of the second planet of your system. It can be used to travel across the major part the galaxy even by races that not yet achieved faster than light space travel. What’s left of the Skrull system and Nova’s capital planet Xandar are also relatively nearby. There’s also the wormhole, the fastest way to the Andromeda, located right at your doorstep, in the Dainn system… I believe you call it the Orion belt._

_[So you see, Odin could not allow the Jotnar to have an unrestricted access to all of that. They had to be stopped. And so Asgard’s army marched into battle once again. They pushed the Laufey’s horde from Midgard, at a great cost. But Odin knew he could not stop on that, it would only mean postponing the inevitable, as the Frost Giants would lick their wounds and rise again, threaten the golden realm eternal again, try to conquer Earth again. He had to act, before they could rebuild their strength and prepare to fight on their own terms._

_[Thus, the Jotunheimr siege begun, with Aesir leading the charge, but rallying Vanir and Ljosalfar troops into the battle as well. And when the dust settled, Asgard stood victorious yet again. Laufey’s armies were defeated and the Casket was taken away and secured in the royal vaults, fettering the Jotnar to their dying world, forcing them to watch as it crumbles and slowly withers away, devoid of its main source of life.]_

“That seems… excessive,” she said, quietly. “Defeating your enemies is one thing, but forcing them into a slow extinction… “

_[It was the only permanent solution. If the Casket was left in Laufey’s hands there would be no lasting peace. Without it, he had no bargain chip and had to bend his knee and accept the Aesir rule. The Jotnar are but brute, mindless beasts and violence is the only language they understand. Pests, that need to be kept under check. Do you care about what the cockroach feels when you squash it?]_

And here it was, the viciousness, the hate, the true disdain, plain on Loki’s face. 

“You can’t mean that…”

 _[And why not? This is what every child in Asgard is told when they are old enough to understand. The Jotnar are the monsters you scare your unruly youth with. They need to be held in line or else they spill like a swarm of insects and destroy everything that’s good in this world.]_ Loki’s eyes narrowed into slits, blazing with hatred. An echo of a nasty, cynical smile danced in their corners.

This wasn’t the end, she realized. It was supposed to be Loki’s story and he didn’t mention himself even once so far. He was trying to rile her and make her ready for what was coming. Building the tension, making sure she reacts the way he wants her to. “Let me make my own mind on that, okay?”

He sighed but did not respond. He rested his left arm on his knee and readjusted the shackle without really looking at it. It’s been quite a while and all the signing took time, especially with all the names and words he had to spell, and it must have tired him out. It was, after all, the most she has ever witnessed him say at once.

But why was he so adamant on making sure she hates the Frost Giants as much as he does? All his previous opinions and assessments seemed rather weighted, either impartial or skewed the other way around but when it came to this singular race there was just pure loathing and contempt, something personal, as if…

_Oh. Oh, no._

“’Loki’ is a Jotun’s name, isn’t it?” she said warily. His head snapped up and he looked at her with a wide-eyed, affronted expression. He apparently didn’t expect her to put it together so soon.

He blinked a couple times and dropped his head back down. He took in a long breath, his nostrils flaring. Then his hands moved. _[The Casket was not the only thing Odin took from Jotunheimr that day. He also took a prisoner. A hostage… a ward,]_ he amended after a moment of consideration. _[Laufey’s son.]_

“You didn’t know,” she whispered, and Loki shook his head.

_[No, I did not. Not until Thor’s failed coronation day and it was just by pure accident that I found out.]_

Her head reeled just trying to imagine how much of a shock that must’ve been. “Why?”

_[Why what?]_

“Why take you?”

He hissed out a humorless laugh. _[Isn’t it obvious? To have a loyal pawn, groomed to Odin’s liking. A figurehead trained to obey without a question, prepared to replace Laufey when the time comes. A tamed beast that can be brought to Asgard’s heel at every command.]_

She chuckled, but it came out flat, probably because humor was the last thing on her mind. “I can’t imagine how that plan could possibly go sideways,” she said, her voice dark. “There’s one thing I don’t get though. It might be the level of politics way above my paygrade, but how keeping you in the dark for all this time was supposed to help? If it was really a lasting peace Odin wanted, playing open cards with you since the very beginning would make the situation a lot more… manageable.” _And save you a lot of unnecessary heartbreak from when you inevitably find out._

Loki threw his hands to the sides theatrically. _[I don’t have the faintest idea I’m afraid. And it no longer matters. Odin’s words, not mine,]_ he added, before she protested.

He was whistling past the graveyard and it was even more obvious than usually. And there was so much he wasn’t telling her. They were his family, for fuck’s sake. For ten goddamned centuries Odin didn’t even once thought he ought to tell Loki the truth? He allowed Loki to cultivate this hatred and disdain towards his own kind, hell, maybe even encouraged it. Denied him his heritage and primed him for failure.

“You said you won’t lie to me, by the way,” she said, feigning offence.

His eyebrows furrowed. _[I did not lie to you.]_

“You did. Just ten minutes ago you told me the Jotnar were mindless beasts. Monsters.”

 _[They are.]_ His absolute confidence in the claim showed up on his face.

She glowered at him. “Well, I have an evidence literally staring at me, proving you wrong.”

He laughed again, the same sharp, mirthless sound and a counterfeit of a smile. _[You have no idea what you are talking about.]_

“Maybe I don’t. But I know enough. You may be worth of many epithets, but no ‘mindless’ nor ‘a beast’ is among them. ‘Monster’ is also highly debatable at best.”

_[You wouldn’t be saying that if you knew what I did. What I really am.]_

“Is it worse than dropping armored space whales on New York and mind-controlling my friends? Because I kind of got over that.”

 _[It…]_ He started on the gesture when she got to the end of the first sentence then stopped and gaped at her. _[What?]_

“No need to act surprised. I’ve told you already, I know what you did and what you’re capable of doing. I might not know your reasons, but I know what it was. I’m not condoning your actions, I’m not agreeing with your decisions, I’m not granting you forgiveness. I might have even fantasized about strangling you in a senseless act of revenge for the people you’ve killed, on more than one occasion.

“But I’m also a pragmatist and I do what must be done. We ended up in this shitshow together. We are working together. We are getting along, somehow. No amount of me despairing over moral dilemmas is going to change what happened, it can only destroy this… truce, or whatever it is that we have here. So, there’s that. For all intents and purposes, I’m over all the things you’ve done. For as long as you do not try to pull the same shit all over again – we are good. If you need to talk, I will listen. If you want to keep something to yourself – that’s fine. But if you do talk, I expect the truth. Not empty excuses, not self-castigation, just honesty. Neither of us has any use for anything else.”

_[I hope you do get the irony.]_

“What irony? You promised. And that stupid moniker of yours? God of lies… honestly, get over yourself. If you’ve picked it on your own, you should’ve spent more than five minutes on it. And if it was chosen by someone else, well, I’m sorry to be the one to break it to you, but according to what you’ve said today, you’re being a victim of a cruel prank and you should consider changing it to “the god of being lied to”, apparently.”

He looked at her for a couple more seconds with that stunned expression back on his face. Then he burst out laughing. Not just a chortle, not one of those calculated sniggers that were meant to convey anything but amusement, not a sinister cackle either. No, an actual, honest laugh.

She eyed him cautiously, not sure what kind of joke just flew under her radar, but it must’ve been truly hilarious from the look of things.

Loki didn’t stop, although he did run out of breath and pressed his hands to his sides.

“Are you all right?”

 _[Give me a moment,]_ he managed, before another round of uncontrollable laughter swallowed him and he doubled over, his arms hugging his ribs.

It was quite a surreal sight and she just stared, bemused. 

He finally got control of his body back, straightened up and wiped tears from his eyes. He got up, walked over to where she was sitting and dropped to his knees in front of her.

_[Hit me.]_

“Uhm, what?”

 _[Hit me,]_ he said again and gestured at his face.

“Don’t be ridiculous. I’m not going to hit you.”

_[It will not make it go away but it will help with the strangulation fantasy, believe me.]_

“You’re not entirely sane, are you? This is not something we should be even discussing.”

 _[Hit me,]_ he repeated.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

_[Clearing the air. Now stop whining and do it.]_

Before she could fully process the absolute lack of logic behind the act, she pulled her arm back, took a full body swing, and threw the punch, until her knuckles connected with his cheekbone with a very unpleasant scrunch.

He swayed but caught himself before he lost his balance. _[Ow,]_ his hands spelled. _[You are stronger than you look.]_ He was still smiling when he reached to rub his cheek.

“You’re completely mad,” she said and jiggled her hand to get feeling back into her fingers. She was pretty sure it hurt more than the punch hurt him. She should’ve gone for his nose.

_[Quite possibly. Feeling better?]_

“Kind of?”

 _[Great. Where were we?]_ he asked and switched to a more comfortable position, folding his legs in front of him. He did not move back to his old spot though.

She shook her head in disbelief. “You were about to tell me about something terrible you did,” she said, sure he did remember exactly where that part of the conversation was put on a pause.

_[I purposefully interrupted Thor’s coronation by letting two Jotnar into the royal vault.]_

“Should I expect any other reason than the desire to fuck shit up for your dumbass brother?”

_[Thor was not ready to rule. He still does not seem ready to rule, the last time we… spoke, even if a year of having to deal with his problems on his own did teach him a lesson or two. A Jotun penetrating Asgard’s security was sure to provoke him into doing something rash, like arguing with Odin, which in turn would lead to delaying the coronation by another couple of years, buying me more time to put some sense into his head._

_[The plan was simple. The Frost Giants get into the vault and are annihilated by the defense mechanism, Thor gets mad they broke his party and lashes out. But, in a stroke of what must’ve been the vilest luck in history two guards got caught in the crossfire. I do not even know what they were doing there, but it turned the attack into a more serious matter and it sure made Thor absolutely furious. Furious enough to go beyond arguing and straight into acting against Odin’s direct commands. He decided to go to Jotunheimr, dragging his friends and me along with him.]_

“And you, in your infinite wisdom, tried to stop him, of course,” she said with a sneer. “How thoughtful.”

_[I still thought I could salvage it. I have sent one of the guards to inform Odin before we sneaked out of Asgard, expecting him to arrive in time to stop Thor from doing anything that would have irreversible consequences.]_

“Let me guess, no such luck?”

_[I counted on Heimdall stopping us from using Bifrost. I would then lead us through the secret paths, buying some time first by stalling and letting Thor slowly convince me. But Heimdall just let us go. And Thor didn’t waste any time before he started smashing.]_

“I can see that. He is the ‘punch first, ask questions while punching’ type of guy.”

_[How long do you know Thor again?]_

“Three days?”

_[Sounds about right.]_

“Well, the first thing he did after landing was punching Stark.”

_[I know. I was there.]_

_Oh yeah, you were,_ Natasha thought and made a mental note to ask him later about why the fuck he stuck around and went for the idiotic plan of getting captured at all. It was not a pressing matter though and it might just as well be another can of worms. Plus, she didn’t want to derail Loki off his current subject. “So, it’s Thor, you, and the minions on… the ice planet, and thunder boy starts bashing faces in. What happens next?”

_[There were six of us against an entire city full of Jotnar, surrounded by their element and very unhappy with our presence. What do you think happens next?]_

“I get the picture.”

 _[We had no chance to win. We would not get out alive if Odin didn’t make it, in the last possible moment. Still, not before…]_ Loki paused and took a deep breath, his fingers curling and uncurling nervously. He was dedicated to finish, she could tell, but he still needed to gather the strength to get the words out. _[Not before one of the Jotnar touched me when we fought.]_

She blinked at him, her gaze politely blank. “I’m sorry, but I don’t know what that means.”

_[The freezing touch of a Jotun is enough to sear your flesh. Enough to leave permanent damage on a mortal and to temporarily incapacitate anyone from the elder races.]_

She furrowed her brows. “You’re being overly dramatic again, right?”

He rolled his eyes. _[Not in this form, obviously,]_ he said then pointed at himself.

“There’s a different… form now?”

_[Did you think that the Jotnar look like you or Thor?]_

“Uhm, yeah? You never said they do not. You are one and you look just like me. Well, not exactly, but you know what I mean.”

_[They’ve been to your world, there ought to be some record left of that.]_

She shrugged. “My copy of the Norse mythology had no pictures in it, okay?” she said. Maybe if it had she would remember more of it. “Point taken though. This is not how you look like. What is it then? Some kind of spell that changes your appearance?”

_[I thought so for a while. But it would have to feed on my energy to last and it would break with my powers locked away. Yet I still look like… me.]_

He looked equal parts distressed and relieved with the fact and she decided to let it go for now, steering the conversation away. “What happened after the frost guy grabbed you?”

It took Loki a moment to shake off whatever thoughts that were rattling in his brain. _[It did not hurt me. My skin changed to match.]_

“This is how you figured it out.”

 _[Yes, but not right away. I could not understand why it was happening to me at first. But then it all started to make sense. Everything fell into place. Why I always felt like… I do not belong, like my body actively resists me on every turn. Why my magic doesn’t feel like anyone else’s. Why… Odin never treated me as Thor’s equal. He even named me after Laufey’s father.]_ Loki paused and tried to chuckle, to show how he was above it all, but the air caught in his throat and came out as a quiet cough. He just shook his head with pretended incredulity. _[When we got back to Asgard, Thor and Odin quarreled, and Thor got exiled. And I went to the vaults and searched out the Casket. Touching it had the same effect and all pretenses were off. Odin found me there. I confronted him. We argued. Odin was exhausted after the complicated spellwork it took to cast Thor out and our… dispute pushed him over the edge and into the Odin-sleep.]_

She wasn’t sure what that meant, but she could work with the context alone.

_[With Thor gone and Odin sleeping the throne fell to my hands.]_

“You got what you wanted.”

_[No.]_

She blinked.

_[I never wanted to rule Asgard. I knew I never could. No matter what happened, the people would see it only in one way, the younger sibling robbing the firstborn of their birthright. All I wanted was respect, the same respect Thor got effortlessly, just for being himself, the same that was never given freely to me, no matter what I did. What I got instead was the Council of the Elders openly refusing their counsel, everyone – including… the All-Mother – looking at me with open suspicion and a new war brewing on the horizon.]_

“You still found time to go to Earth to fuck with Thor,” she said, coldly.

He stared at her, surprised.

“It was in Foster’s testimony, after New Mexico,” she explained. It was part of the dossier they received after Loki’s attack in Germany.

Loki shrugged. _[Thor coming back home would only make things worse. I had to keep him out of it, at least until I’ve dealt with the issue.]_

“You almost killed him.”

Loki scoffed. _[Please, I watched Odin cast the spell, Thor was never in any real danger. Not that it matters much. He was even more insufferable as a mortal and I would still strike him, spell, or no spell.]_

Just him saying it made her develop doubts about that, but she chose not to voice them. “So, you had a plan.”

_[More or less. The last Odin-sleep lasted for months and this one could be even longer than that that since it was not planned but born out of a magical overexertion. The word would come out, sooner or later, that Asgard is weakened without Odin’s watchful eye and iron grip. At that time, I was not in the best… frame of mind, so to speak, but I still knew I had to do something._

_[I could not hope to lead the army against the Jotnar, not with my so-called subjects just as likely to stab me in the back as the enemy. Instead, I lured Laufey into Asgard, promising him an opportunity to assassinate Odin as he sleeps. Then I killed him, just as he was getting ready to strike.]_

She gaped in stunned silence. She was convinced she was supposed to say something, but her mind was blank and her tongue refused to cooperate.

Loki regarded her with a knowing jeer. _[Now you see it. And it gets better, believe me. Because this is exactly the point when Thor comes back. Apparently, his friends wasted no time before deciding that outright treason is better than having me as their king. Not that it came as much of a surprise.]_ He stopped, expecting her to interject. She didn’t. _[Thor came straight at me, but I had the Gungrir still and it was not much of a fight. Then I went to the Bifrost Observatory, aimed it on Jotunheimr, turned the beam on and froze it in place with the Casket, so it could not be turned off.]_

“Why?”

_[To destroy it, once and for all, of course. To finish what Odin has started. To wipe them out, so they could not be a threat to Asgard ever again.]_

There was a ruthless, grim determination in Loki’s eyes, but no regret, nor remorse.

“You can’t just… kill an entire species,” she said flatly.

He cocked his head to the side. _[That’s funny. Thor said the exact same thing when he finally found me on the Bifrost. But he failed to answer the follow-up question. Why not?]_

She felt the cold tendril of dread slithering its way up her spine. Not because there was no answer, but because there were too many she knew he would not accept, blinded by his hate and rage and despair. Did Thor felt the same in that moment, his mind scrambling for words and not able to find proper ones, his silence being read as confirmation?

Loki was taught no veneration for his own kind. He was told his entire life that they are somehow lesser, inferior. Unworthy. _Vermin. Mindless beasts._ And then, when he found out who he was, he turned those feelings inside out. _I am not even a person_. He might have resented the entire race because of his upbringing, by learning history from the victors’ perspective, but there was one specific Jotun he loathed with a passion. One Frost Giant he wanted to be rid of more than anyone.

“Killing them all would not change who you are, Loki. Wiping out an entire planet of living, breathing, _thinking_ beings was not going to erase your heritage. I hope you realize that.”

He glared at her, the mocking sneer slowly melting away from his face. _[How could I not?]_ He sucked in a jagged breath and his eyes closed _. [You don’t need to fret. It didn’t come to pass. Thor smashed the bridge before the beam fully charged.]_

 _It was not the only thing that broke that day, was it?_ Fuck, did Odin really think his sleight could end with anything else but a disaster? Did he really expected that his pretended son would just bend his neck and accept his fate after learning the truth? “What happened after that?”

_[Not much. Odin woke and saved Thor from falling into the void at the end of the destroyed bridge. I fell.]_

“Odin didn’t…”

_[He did. He caught both of us. But I saw the look on his face. I saw what I should have seen years ago if I wasn’t blinded by my ignorance and wishful thinking. I could never be good enough. I could never have his trust. I could never be the son he wanted. There was no point in pretending otherwise. I let go and hoped for an end.]_

“You wanted to die?”

 _[No.]_ His shoulder twitched, and he turned the gesture into a more deliberate shrug. _[I just did not particularly care about living.]_

“Yet you lived.”

_[A keen observation.]_

“You still feel that way?”

He frowned. _[I don’t think so. But the choice is no longer in my hands.]_

That much was true, so she only nodded, her lips pulled into a thin line. “So, about that Jotun form of yours…”

 _[Wait,]_ he said, baffled by that sudden change of subject. _[No stern reprimand? No sermon on morals? No lecture about the value of life?]_

Natasha smiled. “And what would be the point of that? It’s obvious. You tried to impress your sorry excuse for a father, by proving your loyalty beyond a reasonable doubt, in the only way you knew how. It backfired, horribly, because it was a shit way to do it. You were never even given a real chance, a full set of boundary conditions to do it right. And you already figured out where the flaws in your logic were because you are one smart cookie who spends a lot of time in their own head. Now you only need to apply the revised version of it to yourself.”

He looked at her blankly.

“You really need me to spell it out for you? Fine. Your race doesn’t make you any less of a person than Thor, or Odin, or me, or anyone else. It does not invalidate everything you are, everything you’ve learned or achieved. It doesn’t automatically make you the bad guy in everyone else’s story.” _That’s your own doing._

Loki stared at her in consternation, eyes wide and shiny. His breathing turned erratic and all the frantic energy seeped away from his stance. He blinked and a single tear rolled down his cheek. He didn’t move to wipe it off and it disappeared between the metal plates of the muzzle.

She leaned in and reached out, slowly. He traced her movement but made no attempt to move away, just like he did not pull back when she cupped his cheek, careful to not touch the metal, and ran her thumb under his eye. His eyelids fluttered close and he leaned into her touch ever so slightly. She could feel minute quivers running through his body. A soft sob escaped his throat.

How long was he yearning for something like this? A couple of kind words and a simple gesture of comfort to ease his mind and calm down the storm in his thoughts?

She ran her fingers through his hair, brushing the few loose curls away from his face and tugging them behind his ear before pulling away. He stumbled forward a little and his hand jerked at the loss of contact, like he wanted to hold on to her but changed his mind.

“Feeling better?”

He slowly opened his eyes and focused his vision on her, his usual composure creeping its way back to his face. _[Yes.]_

She smiled, then yawned. The eastern sky already had that pinkish glow, heralding the moon-planet rise. She lost the track of time during their conversation and the whole night has passed without her noticing, but now she could feel the sleepiness clouding her thoughts. Loki looked just as exhausted, even if for different reasons.

“You think you’ll be able to sleep?”

_[I don’t know.]_

“Want to try?”

_[I suppose.]_

“Great, cause I’m totally ready to log out here,” she said. Loki nodded in agreement, although she was pretty certain he got her meaning more from context than from her words. He was good at that.

She regarded their fire cautiously. It has burned down to embers and they were a good hundred yards away from the closest trees, so leaving it unsupervised shouldn’t be an issue.

She lay down, flat on her back; she found the position the most comfortable when sleeping on a bare, hard ground some nights ago and stuck to it ever since. She closed her eyes and listened to the sounds Loki made settling down, right next to her, as he apparently still decided against moving away.

He wasn’t touching her, not exactly, but he was so close she could feel the cold radiating from his body. It used to freak her out at the beginning, then it was mostly curiosity and she got used to it in the end. And now she knew the reason…

_Oh, Loki._

She reached, without looking, and her hand found his arm. She could feel him tensing immediately, but he did not move or jerk away. She gently traced a line from the crook of his elbow, over the metal of the shackle, cold just like his skin, down to his palm; she wriggled her fingers in between his and laced their hands together with a light, reassuring squeeze. After a moment she felt his fingers shift as he returned the gesture.

She fell asleep still holding his hand. She did not dream.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cosmology lesson in which I take certain… liberties and do some mixing and matching from mythology, comics, the cinematic universe and headcanon. A lot of rewrites here, even if not everything matches still. Or maybe my characters are just a bit misinformed, hard to tell. No mentions of Hela, because Loki wouldn’t know about her at that point anyway.
> 
> Also, it seems like this is a good moment to explain, that according to my headcannon Norse mythology in-universe is not as extensive as it's in our world. It would be weird if humans somehow knew about Hela or Loki's heritage, ages before our characters found out, when all it would take was picking up a book (and I refuse to believe Loki wouldn't read a book about _himself_ when on Earth). So, in short, it's basically an abridged story of Bor and Odin and some of Loki and Thor's excursions on Earth, then just random made up stories that people with too much free time thought up (I assume life in tenth century Scandinavia could get kinda boring). In other words: I'm throwing most of the Mythology out of the window, even if I'm drawing some parallels, later on, it's just an inspiration, not a callback.


	16. Taking parts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which a realization hits and things get better for a moment.

The sun was up on the sky when she woke. She shut her eyes again against the brilliance. Her mind was slow, her head felt heavy, like she was at the edge of a heartache and there was numbness in her limbs. It’s been quite a while since she was able to sleep for so long undisturbed and now her body had trouble adjusting. Too much of a good thing can kill you, they said. Well, at least she was rested for a change. And it did not necessarily feel like dying, if anything, sleeping without nightmares was a comfort she didn’t know she would miss, yet there it was. She sincerely hoped they were gone for good.

She rolled to her side and yelped in surprise.

“What the hell?”

Loki shrugged. He was… lounging right next to her, on his side, his head propped against one arm, one resting slackly across his stomach, his half-closed eyes fixed on her.

“You do realize that watching other people sleep is creepy as fuck, right?”

He shrugged again, very unconvincingly. He would have to change positions to sign and it looked like he had no desire to do so. There was a small smile dancing in the corners of his eyes. He seemed amused, or maybe just very pleased with something.

“Come on, what is it?”

His shoulders raised again, just slightly. Then he moved his free hand, his fingers forming a circle under his chin, then he threw his hand loosely forward. The casual version of a “nothing” sign, the one that he could use just one arm for.

She snorted. “Fine, suit yourself,” she said and rolled back onto her back and aimed her eyes at the sky. There were storm clouds gathering in the north again and it looked like they were up for another rainy day. She crinkled her eyes and let the sunrays soak her bones with their warmth, wishing she could accumulate enough heat for the incoming, colder hours.

She could still see Loki in the corner of her eye, and she knew he didn’t move an inch, his persistent glare prickling the skin of her neck. It wasn’t even the stare that bothered her per se, and rather the fact that there was something on his mind. For a moment she sorted through questions she could ask to get him to spill it out then decided against it. He would tell her eventually if it was important.

They stayed like that, in silence, for quite some time. It was rather pleasant.

“Loki?” she started, eventually.

She heard a clink and noticed a blur of movement, so she turned again.

_[What?]_

She couldn’t believe he got up just for that, his expression was enough of a hint, even without the sign.

“I still think it’s a nice name.”

_[I don’t know...]_

“Your name. It’s nice. It suits you. You should keep it.”

_[Who said I won’t?]_

“I don’t know, _Loki_. I might have gotten a wrong idea.”

_[If you are so bent on using it so much I may just as well have you call me something else before I go mad from hearing it all the time.]_

“Works for me! I love inventing new names for people, I used to do it all the time, before SHIELD got that stupid algorithm that does it automatically,” she said, biting into his bait just for fun. “You look a lot like… hmm… Gary to me.”

He didn’t even deign it with an answer. He didn’t have to; the stare was enough.

“Kevin?”

An eyeroll.

“Jeffrey?”

_[It sounds like a name for a horse.]_

“Bob?”

_[I changed my mind. Loki is fine.]_

She flashed a complacent smile. “You want to come up with a sign for it?”

_[A sign?]_

“The formal way to address someone in the sign language is to spell the name, no exceptions. But it can get tedious, as you’ve probably noticed. So, as a way of making things easier, it’s common to have custom signs for people you are familiar with on a personal level. Shortcuts of sorts. Individual naming agreed upon between the parties involved. It often includes your initial, combined with some identifying characteristic or just shown in an uncommon way. Mine would be…” Her hand went up to show an N over her heart but she switched the sign mid-motion to the N over her left shoulder, followed by the sign for “a spider” that she had people use more commonly. Using that first one would make her think about the person who coined it. That hurt too much. “It’s customary to be given such a name by the members of the… community, sort of as an initiation ceremony, although I don’t think we would be offending anyone if we bend the rules a bit.”

_[Any suggestions?]_

“Hmm… Well, your name literally means ‘curls’ in some Slavic languages, so it would be fitting to go for _this_ ,” she said, showing a downward spiral motion away from her face that shifted into an L-sign at the end. 

He studied her for a moment, then moved. She expected him to copy the gesture. _[I have a better one,]_ he said instead and threw up a simple L, with his index finger placed over the muzzle.

“Yeah…” she admitted feebly. It was clever but she absolutely hated it at the same time.

_[Alternatively, you can go for something with ‘ice’ in it.]_

On the other hand, it was not that bad.

The silence was a lot less comfortable this time.

“Can you use the… frost magic powers?”

_[Now or in general?]_

“Both.”

_[No, and I am not sure, respectively.]_

She crooked her head and arched an eyebrow. “How so?”

_[Deep at the core all arcane powers stem from the same source, no matter the kind. I’m locked away from that source, so I can use neither the kind I have learned nor the innate one, whether it is there or not. That much is certain.]_

“And for the second part?”

_[I never had an opportunity to try. I only ever used the Casket. That worked.]_

“No opportunity? You had a year! Don’t tell me you were not curious.”

 _[Something like that,]_ he said, his eyes growing dark. She decided not to call him out on the obvious evasion.

“So, you can’t change either?”

 _[No, I cannot,]_ he said, _[even if I wanted to.]_

“Even if it’s not a spell?”

_[It is a physical transformation but it still needs to be an outcome of a potent magic to be so… lasting. I don’t know if I’d be able to reverse it permanently with full access to my powers and more so now.]_

“Then describe it to me. And I expect all the minute details, mind you.”

_[Why?]_

“Because I’m curious, do you really need any other reason?”

 _[I…]_ he started and furrowed his brows. _[I don’t know the details. It is not like I had much time to study myself in a mirror.]_

“Okay… So what do you know?”

_[My real skin is blue.]_

“Blue? Like the space cat-elves from The Avatar?”

_[I have no idea what you are talking about, I hope you realize that.]_

“It’s a movie,” she explained, and then backtracked. “Do you know what a movie is?”

_[I get the basic concept, yes.]_

“Well, it’s a movie. About a race of blue cat elves from space. They shoot arrows and stuff. Super cute.”

_[Then I definitely do not look like those.]_

“A tail?”

_[No.]_

“Horns?”

_[No.]_

_There goes that specific fancy._ “Extra appendages?”

_[Not that I know of.]_

_“_ Come on, give me something!”

He wrinkled his nose and his nostrils flared. _[It is… similar to my current form. My skin is blue, with darker ridges… marks. My eyes are red. That’s about it.]_

“Glowing red?” she asked, trying to form a mental image. It was coming along swimmingly.

_[I suppose.]_

“That’s cool!”

_[Excuse me?]_

“Glowing eyes are cool. It’s like a fantasy staple. Seriously, I refuse to believe there is a world where that’s not the case. I always wondered how one would be able to see through those though…”

_[I don’t understand how you can…]_

“What?”

_[Treat it like it does not matter.]_

“And why should it? What do you expect me to say? You want me to writhe in terror and call you an abomination? Because of what? A different skin color and fancy eyes? I worked for SHIELD, remember? I’ve seen some weird shit, that wouldn’t even make it to the top ten; you’ll need way more than that. It is still _you_.”

_[That is exactly the point.]_

“If you’re fishing for compliments you also need to try harder than that.”

 _[That’s not…]_ he started, and she almost chuckled at this flustered look being back on his face, even if he recovered a lot quicker this time. 

“Chill, I know. I just don’t really care about appearances all that much even on the best of days.”

She was telling him what he needed to hear, but it didn’t mean it wasn’t true. She would be stupid if she claimed that looks played no part in life, but she was relying too much on her own sexual appeal in her professional life to fool herself it was anything more than just that – a shell, a tool. Nothing to bother oneself with in private relations. She wasn’t sure if her disinterest came from the thing that she _was_ , or if years of using her own body as a well-honed weapon schooled it out of her over the years but it didn’t matter in the long run. If anything, it made a lot of things easier.

 _[It must be easy to say for someone like you,]_ he said.

 _What was that even supposed to mean?_ “No, Loki, it must be easy for anyone with at least half a brain. I get it. People are petty and growing up around someone who radiates unsubstantiated self-confidence to the next galaxy like Thor must have taken its toll…”

_[It’s not about that.]_

“Oh yes, it is totally about that. Imagine if you grew up in your own skin, confident in who you are and not wondering who you’re supposed to be, maybe even surrounded with peers of your own kind. Do you think you’d be despairing over being blue now? Would you be too disturbed to take a good look at yourself in a mirror?”

_[I would be dead. I would still be a runt who did not live through the first winter.]_

She bit her lower lip and stared at him, taken aback. “Uhm, and where does _that_ come from?”

_[Clue is in the name. Giant. I’m not much of one. Odin found me, left out to die. Cast out, not good enough to deserve to live.]_

“And you know that how? Because he told you?”

_[Yes.]_

“And it didn’t cross your snazzy head to ask yourself whether he wasn’t lying about that too? I mean, seriously, are you really buying it that he found the offspring of the fucking ruler of a rival empire just… abandoned and up for _saving_? Conveniently wrapped up with a big bow on top to just come and claim as his own?”

Loki gaped at her. Oh yeah, he totally didn’t even think about it. She could almost hear the gears grinding up in his head, shaking off the dust and finally getting up to speed after ages of being left untouched. It only made her wonder how much power Odin still held over his surrogate son slash prisoner of war, that Loki didn’t even consider looking under that particular rock, even after all that he’s been through. 

All stages of grief ran through his face in rapid succession until he reached a conclusion somehow, so quickly she was almost impressed. No, scratch that, she _was_ impressed, period.

He sucked in a long breath. _[That would mean…]_ He stopped and covered his face with his hands. He stayed like this for a while and it took all his strength to peel them away in the end. _[That just being stuck in a wrong form all my life made me… this.]_

“Could be worse, to be honest,” she supplied, lightly. “I know many people who have a lot less to work with. I mean, you’re still a super-strong, terrifyingly intelligent and functionally immortal space wizard.”

And, as much as she wasn’t going to mention it, he wasn’t even bad looking. Maybe he wasn’t the definition of handsome one would print on the covers of men’s health magazines, other than the tall-and-dark aspect that never goes out of fashion: the angles of his face were too sharp, his jawline too narrow, his nose too broad, his eyebrows too high, his eyes too big and too close together. But there was a certain, vague beauty in his features that somehow escaped definition, that still lingered there, no matter how much punishment his body took, and persevered under all the bruises and scars and forced muteness. It took her a while to notice, but she could see it now, even if it mattered little. And the ethereal, elusive nature of it made her almost certain it would endure whatever fate had in stock for Loki, different skin and eye color notwithstanding. Persistent and adaptable, like Loki himself.

She would miss the eye color though. It was probably the most otherworldly thing about Loki and it grew on her, in all its variations. She could never tell if it was an actual physical change or just a trick of light, but she often found herself mesmerized by how differently his irises could appear depending on the circumstances, seemingly going from dark emerald under the hazy pinkish gleam of the moon-planet, through jade, to pale turquoise that was almost more blue than green in full sunlight, like now.

He looked at her doubtfully. _[Not so immortal or much of a mage right now.]_ He spelled the word ‘mage’, perhaps to let her know there’s a difference. She made a mental note of it.

“Yeah, cause I can totally see Thor faring all that better under the same circumstances.”

_[At least it would be quick. He solves most of his problems by hitting them in the face with a blunt object.]_

“He would probably miss and survive, and I would have to slit my own wrists with a dull piece of rock just to get out of this nightmare.”

_[Are you saying that you wouldn’t rather be stuck here with Thor?]_

“Oh gods, why would I? I totally hit the jackpot on the ‘mortal enemies to be stuck with on an alien planet till you die’ roulette.”

Loki laughed and it felt like something heavy lifting from her chest.

\---

She unraveled the piece of cloth from around her wrist. The pain was a dim background noise for a while now that only peaked out occasionally if she forgot about the injury and twisted her hand in a wrong way or grabbed something heavy, and even those spikes were getting duller and duller as of late.

The swelling was gone, and the bruises faded into yellowy browns, even if they still bore the unmistakable shape of Loki’s fingers. The feeling of cool air on the freshly uncovered skin was welcome, yet she still wrapped it right back up. And the reason, she told herself, was only the additional support the ragged piece of cloth provided and had absolutely nothing to do with hiding the still visible marks from Loki, to not remind him about what happened that night. He probably remembered anyway. 

Besides, he still wore the pieces of her shirt around his wrist, so it was only fair.

\---

It rained the whole next two days and by the second evening Natasha abandoned all hopes that they’d be able to find a place dry enough for a fire.

 _[This weather is… not ideal,]_ Loki said, and she smiled, inadvertently, because it was the first complaint she witnessed him let out. Progress was progress, no matter how small.

“Totally ahead of you there. I wouldn’t say no to having some sort of shelter. Something more… permanent, maybe,” she said, as she was eyeing her surroundings for a spot that would be at least marginally less drenched than the rest. Even here, amidst the trees, one was impossible to come by and she just plopped down between the roots of a tree with a wet-sounding plunk.

Loki remained standing and he was staring down at her critically. _[I thought you wanted to go on.]_

“I guess, but… what’s the point? You said it yourself. There’s no one here.” She wasn’t sure at which point the faint hope she tried to cultivate against all odds gave way to the silent, calm acceptance, but it did.

 _[Are you ready to just roll over and die?]_ he asked, throwing her own words back at her.

“My memory might not be as perfect as yours, but I can still clearly recall you telling me not to get my hopes up. So, there you go. You won. I give up.” She let her hands drop to her lap. They made a pitiful, wet sound when she clasped them against her tights.

_[That’s a shame. I thought you’re stronger than that.]_

“What was that supposed to mean?”

_[I would expect it takes more than a couple of lean days to bring down Natasha Romanova, the infamous Avenger.]_

“I go with just two Fs these days. Sounds more American. And fuck you, by the way.”

Loki folded his arms across his chest and glowered at her. He was clearly aiming for the looming, fearsome look, but his damp hair and clothes sticking to his thin frame diminished the effect somewhat.

“I’m getting really mixed signals here. What the hell is this about?”

_[You are essential to figuring out the powers of this place.]_

She blinked. “What?”

_[You are essential to figuring…]_

“Yes, I understood the words the first time. I’m just mysteriously missing the memory of when you were telling me about how that’s something you are up to.”

_[That’s because I didn’t tell you yet.]_

“No shit. Why?”

_[The chances are extremely slim. I don’t know what it is. I don’t know what it does. I don’t even know if it could be used to help even if it’s accessed somehow.]_

“You told me you won’t…”

_[I did not lie to you.]_

“A lie by omission is still a lie.”

He let out an annoyed sigh. _[It took me a while to put together.]_

“Put what together?”

_[Your dreams. I thought they are just echoes of a long forgotten, powerful protection spell. Some random aftereffects with no meaning or method.]_

“They are not?”

_[No, at least I don’t think so.]_

“What made you change your mind?”

_[You told me.]_

Natasha pulled in her eyebrows. “I did? When?”

_[After the wave. You said it let you go. To help me. You felt it as well. You told me something has changed.]_

“You think it is important?”

_[I don’t know. But it is aware of the real world as it exists right now, in real time. Not just a ripple from a spell that burned out ages ago. Whatever its purpose is, it’s still active.]_

“Do you know what it is? Why it does what it does?”

_[No. But it could be a security system. And if a security system is still active, it means that the thing it is securing might still be here as well.]_

“Loki,” she started, and hesitated. She hated the thought of destroying the little flame of hope that just sparked in his eyes. But, just like her, he had no use for lies. Not here. “I don’t think it is.”

_[What?]_

“I don’t think it’s active anymore,” she said with a heavy heart. “I didn’t have a single dream since the wave.”

_[It may be a coincidence.]_

“I was in that cave every time I closed my eyes. For days. You saw it, you dragged me out each time. But now there’s nothing. I don’t know how to explain it, but I feel like… I feel like there was some sort of a connection but it’s no longer there.” She wasn’t sure what made her say that, but the moment the words left her lips she knew they were true. “I don’t know what makes me feel that. I don’t know if it even makes any sense… Does it?”

He eyed her with a frown and then nodded. _[Yes,]_ he admitted.

She ran her hand up her face, pushing away the hair rain has plastered to her skin. “I’m sorry.”

He half sat down, half collapsed to a sitting position, like all the energy suddenly left him. The spark in his eyes was gone.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered again.

 _[It is not your fault,]_ he said. He wasn’t even looking at her anymore.

“Maybe I’m wrong and I just…”

 _[Let me think,]_ he cut her off.

The rain continued to tap away as they sat in silence. Loki’s face was hidden behind his hand and she couldn’t see his expression, but the body language alone was enough.

She knew that telling the truth was the right thing to do, but she couldn’t shake the unpleasant feeling from seeing him like that. Not angry, not desperate, just… sad. She wasn’t sure why. She wasn’t afraid of him or of his reaction, that’s certain, it was not the case for quite some time now. She knew he would get a grip of himself eventually, because he always did.

It was just… she enjoyed seeing him… not happy, that never happened, but content, even if those were just brief moments before reality caught up and clawed the smile off his face.

Why? The answer was staring her in the eyes, as plain as a day. She liked his company and not only because she had no other choice. She liked his quick mind, his self-depreciating, dry wit, his curiosity, his stupidly impressive insistence on holding onto his dignity against all odds and the eccentric mix of humility and arrogance he carried himself with. She liked _him_.

Oh well, no one was perfect anyway.

\---

A cramp in her leg woke her up. She stretched her limbs and opened her eyes. It did not change a thing. She sighed. Great, it was completely dark and they had no fire, again. At least it wasn’t raining anymore, even if everything still felt damp and the air was heavy with moisture.

“Loki?” she called out into the dark, to check if he was close or if he wandered away when she was asleep. That happened, on occasion, even if he was always back by the time they were to head out again. The grass rustled, a few feet to her right and Loki’s chain clanked. “I’m just checking if you’re around. Sorry if I woke you up.”

She expected that to be the end of it, but the sounds continued, then there were muffled steps coming her way, bare feet squelching on the muddy ground, and Loki sat down next to her, leaning against the tree, close enough for their arms to touch.

“Thanks, space boy,” she muttered and squeezed his upper arm reassuringly, then nestled closer and rested her head on his shoulder. He huffed out something that could’ve been a chuckle, his breath ruffling her hair, and she smiled at the darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sincere apologies to any Jeffreys out there who might be reading this. 
> 
> And let me use this occasion to say that the Jotnar in the MCU should totally have horns. Horns, Coral. Not only it would make the whole Loki theme more consistent in a twisted way (also hint at the duality of Odin’s heritage, even if that’s not something that would make the way into the movies), it would also look dope, because, duh, horns are awesome and it would be totally rad. Biggest lost opportunity in the history of lost opportunities, maybe ever. And I’m willing to die on the fandom barricades carrying a banner saying that. Horns! I demand HORNS.


	17. Come alive

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which a plan is hatched.

It was the light shining through her eyelids that woke her up the next time. She stalled, keeping her eyes closed, allowing the world around to seep into her mind slowly, without a rush, knowing there wouldn’t be stopping the inevitable confrontation with reality once she opened her eyes.

She rubbed her hand lazily against the surface her cheek was pressed onto, soft and leathery and… Her eyes fluttered open in an instant, wide with sudden comprehension. She was sleeping on Loki’s lap, she must’ve slipped down during the night without waking up. She mouthed a curse, then cranked her neck and looked up at his face, just in time to see his eyes open and blink away the remains of sleep. He stared at her, patiently taking in the scene, then slowly untangled his fingers from her hair and raised his hands to sign. _[Am I fulfilling my purpose as a pillow sufficiently enough?]_

“Infinitely better than the ground, that’s for sure,” she tossed back, sat up and ran her hand through her hair to get it back in order. “Sorry for that.”

Loki shrugged. _[It is hardly the worst thing I’ve been used for.]_ Even if his words carried a disturbing edge, there was a smile lurking in his laughter lines and Natasha decided not to read too much into it.

“We can swap the next time around. I’m willing to bet you my lap is more comfortable. Definitely not as bony.”

_[Be careful with what you promise, or I might come to collect.]_

The notion did not bother her, not at all. Her lips curved into a smile. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

_[I think I figured it out, by the way.]_

“Figured what?” she asked absentmindedly, her thoughts still hovering around the previous subject.

_[Your connection with the spell.]_

“You did?”

_[Yes.]_

She glowered at him. “Do I really need to squeeze it out of you one sentence at the time for the dramatic effect? You know too damn well I have no idea about how magic works and it’s going to take forever.”

He made a face like a kid caught red handed on stealing cookies from the jar. _[Fine. I’ll not bore you with my words even a heartbeat longer than necessary.]_

“I prefer your impressions of feigned innocence over fake butthurt, but do as you please,” she said with a sneer and he raised his hands in surrender.

_[Weaving a spell allows you to affect the world around you, sometimes in ways not available to anyone but the wielders of such powers. But it is… a transaction. It requires energy. It could be drawn from the cosmic power faults, from nature, from artefacts where it was previously stored or even from your own body reserves. The last one is the easiest and usually the first one learns but it can also be dangerous if you don’t know what you’re doing and it can lead to overstrain or even, in extreme cases, to death.]_

“That sounds scary.”

 _[It can be if you don’t know your limits… or have no other options.]_ He paused, suddenly thoughtful and she just knew there was another painful memory hidden beneath that sentence. _[Every time energy is expended, it leaves a trace. It can last just a brief moment or linger for ages, depending on how and how much of it was used. That’s how we were able to come here through the portal. Such spells require an immense amount of energy to cast, enough to rip the time-space continuum apart and rearrange it according to the caster’s wish and it ripples across the universe, seeping onto those old trails, reawakening them, just briefly. If you’re lucky, as we were, you can spot one of those cracks and slip through them, even without being able to wield the energy yourself.]_

“So it’s not just like, I don’t know, veering your car on a highway and landing on whatever’s on the other side of the rail?”

_[Not at all.]_

“You call it luck but it seems like an awful lot of skill needs to go into that.”

Loki shrugged but he wasn’t entirely immune to flattery and it showed. _[You could say that.]_

“I assume it has something to do with my dreams as well?”

_[A spell that creates a connection with a living mind is not that different than one that connects two points in space. It leaves a trace all the same. The one that affected you needed to be quite potent to hold on for so long and the link was only broken when it let you go.]_

“So you’re saying that there’s still some sort of a leftover bond there?”

_[Not necessarily, but the path that the link created is. And paths work both ways. It might be possible to find it and reignite it again, it does not take nearly as much energy or knowledge as it did to create it in the first place.]_

“But how are you going to do that without your magic?”

_[Not me. You.]_

She narrowed her eyes. “Uhm…” She pointed at her face. “Still not a space wizard, in case you missed it the last time I told you.”

Loki rolled his eyes. _[It is not something that requires the deepest arcane knowledge. Even Thor was able to learn a trick or two over the years.]_

“So, to reiterate: you want me to learn how to use magic to find the path and welcome nightmares back into my head so I could maybe talk to the thing that’s been stalking me for the last weeks, in hopes that I might learn something about the magics of this place.”

_[Yes.]_

“That sounds like a really, really long shot.”

_[It is.]_

“But it’s the best… the only one we have.”

_[Yes.]_

“Works for me! What do we do then?”

_[I am going to teach you a technique you can use to control your subconsciousness better and we go from there.]_

“A magical technique?”

_[Yes.]_

“Well, I’m ready anytime you are, master,” she said with a smirk and ignored the way her heart skipped a beat in her chest and the way he cringed at her words.

\---

Natasha concentrated hard on not letting her disappointment show.

The mysterious magical process Loki has promised to teach her turned out to be a meditation routine, basically. Not only it did not feel esoteric enough for her tastes, she was also famously bad at those, because getting her mind to shut up seemed like an unsurmountable task. Shoving away the external layer of her thoughts only succeeded at bringing forth the ones she buried deeper, the ones she was keen on never getting back to ever again.

There was a light pat on her knee and she opened her eyes. Well, that was another issue – she could not follow Loki’s guidance when she couldn’t see what he was saying and meeting her inner self, as he poetically put it, required minimizing all external sensory input, including vision. So, in other words, she had to keep her eyes closed for it to work.

 _[You’re focusing on breathing too much,]_ Loki said, for what must be at least the sixth time in the last hour. There was no hint of impatience on his face though and it made her rethink her assessment of his attributes as a teacher. _[I know it can be hard at first, but do try.]_

“All I’ve been doing since we’ve started is trying!” she snapped and immediately regretted it. It wasn’t Loki’s fault. “I’m sorry. I’m putting in the effort, I really do. I’m just not sure what exactly it is that you want me to achieve. I don’t even know how that ‘blank slate’ is supposed to feel like.”

Loki crooked his head and rubbed the side of his nose, absently, then his hands froze. It’s been a while since she saw him struggle to find proper words. This time though she suspected it was not because he did not know the signs he needed, just that they did not exist. 

_[Each time the manifestation spoke to you it was in the exact same place, correct?]_

“Yeah…” she said, then added with a frown, “well, besides the first one, but that was not like the others, I was in some kind of forest, I guess? And there were just voices.”

_[That was probably how it found you out, in a dream-walking sequence. It’s one of the most basic types of magic, affecting an idle mind is a lot easier than influencing a woke one. It usually requires physical contact though, doing it remotely is trickier and maintaining an aura on an area to catch anyone in it is even harder. Still, not impossible, given proper preparations. But that was just a seed, the real connection created the first time it spoke to you. And it was in the cave.]_

“Yes,” she confirmed “but does the place really matter that much?”

_[It does. The spell uses the existing concepts and constructs and images that are already existing in your head to communicate. A bit like the All-Tongue, but without the vocal representation, perhaps because of energy constrains. There’s no reason to suspect it would use different rules for the location. Have you ever been to a similar place in reality?]_

“No… But now that you mentioned it, it did kind of feel oddly familiar, in a very vague, déjà vu way.”

_[It was your subconsciousness that generated it, after all.]_

“Wouldn’t it be something less… weird, if that was the case?”

_[Unconscious mind’s underlying logic is not always obvious in a way you would expect. And it is the reasonable assumption the spell would find your… inner place and use it.]_

“Inner place?”

_[I don’t think your language has better terms to describe it. It is the space in your head where your core resides, where all the immaterial paths cross. Finding and visualizing it is one of the first steps to learn the workings of your own mind, which is necessary for anyone trying to learn arcane powers.]_

“How do you know I even have one then?”

_[Everyone has, even when they are not aware or have no visual representation for it.]_

“So, you’re telling me my own mind decided that an empty, dark cavern is the proper representation of my psyche?”

_[It could be worse.]_

“Oh, I’m sure it can.”

 _[Mine is the top of a glacier, a snowy, cold void stretching on into every direction,]_ Loki offered with a small huff. _[I always preferred colder weather and I used to find the desolation calming. Now… not so much.]_ He rubbed his eyes and shook his head in disbelief. _[I still cannot believe I did not puzzle it all out ages ago.]_

“You had no reason to suspect anything.”

 _[But I did. A whole lot of them, in fact.]_ He shifted, pulling his legs closer, his hands resting on his knees for a moment before he decided to continue. _[My magic always felt different and I had to find a modification for every spell I discovered in the books or it wouldn’t work. All the long-suffering stares and meaningful silences from Frigg and Odin when I asked something about myself or the history of war with Jotunheimr that I never failed to misinterpret. How I fell ill with sicknesses that did not affect anyone else. How I couldn’t keep up with Thor or his friends in training even after spending much more time on it. I was probably the shortest, smallest twenty-year-old Asgard has ever seen but then I was almost Thor’s height by my next nameday.]_ His gestures grew more clipped and frantic as he went on, like a dam has burst in his brain and he needed to get it all out before it drowned him. _[Everyone always told me I feel so cold, even if I couldn’t feel it myself. So I rarely ever touched anyone, even after I’ve learned to fool the sense of touch along with the eyes with my illusions. I was always easier to damage and it took me longer to heal, at least until I’ve learned to speed up the process with magic. There was only one healer that would tend to me each time I needed medical attention and… That old hag knew what I am all along and never let it slip, not even once…]_ His fingers curled into fists before he worked to unfurl them. _[What else? I can’t tolerate hot weather well or eat certain foods without feeling sick. My hearing range is shifted upwards. My heart beats faster than that of a true Aesir. I cannot even get a tan or grow a proper beard...]_ He stopped, panting slightly, and ran his hand over his chin reflexively. Indeed, his facial hair never progressed past a very unimpressive stubble even before he started shaving it off with the blade, at least the parts he could reach. And it’s been quite a while since Natasha noticed the tan situation. _[All those details that were staring me in the face this whole time while I decided to ignore them. But I suppose the obvious explanation was too believable to search for other answers. Everyone accepted it readily.]_

“What obvious explanation?”

 _[That I’m just… defective. Weaker, lesser, broken somehow.]_ He took in a long breath and let it out slowly. _[But I guess that’s not true. I’m not damaged goods, just an outright lie. An impostor in a borrowed skin. A counterfeit…]_ He pressed his fists into his eyes and groaned in frustration.

She leaned in and placed her hand on his knee, squeezing it lightly. “You are not.”

 _[It is not…]_ He stopped mid-gesture, looked down at her hand and let out a heavy sigh. _[I was supposed to teach you, not wail over my own inadequacy.]_

“Loki, look at me.” He did. “We are all just a sum of our experiences. A patchwork of bits and pieces that we picked up along the way, nothing more, nothing less. It will only ever feel complete and whole if you allow it. You are who you are and there’s no changing that, but you can learn to accept it and get on with your life to make it better for yourself and everyone around you.”

_[I have nothing left.]_

“It’s a good place to start anew from.”

_[Can you even believe what you’re saying?]_

“How could I not? Fifteen years ago I was but a mindless tool for a bunch of bloodthirsty murderers and now I’m sitting with a thousand year-old, extraterrestrial mage on an alien planet, discussing secrets of magic and entry-level philosophy. If that’s possible, what isn’t?”

He chuckled. _[I suppose,]_ he said, cryptically.

Of course, he couldn’t accept such an easy answer this time around either and, of course, Natasha was going to keep on telling him exactly that until he did. The cliched “loving oneself” might be far, far away for Loki still, but getting him to stop actively hating the person currently inhabiting his body would be a step into the right direction. “You’re sure you’re not the one who needs to find their inner peace?”

_[There will be time for that. I would rather focus on getting you back home, if you will.]_

“Us,” she corrected.

He shrugged.

“Loki?”

He shrugged again

“What is that supposed to mean?”

 _[Nothing,]_ he said.

“I kind of feel like it’s _something_.”

He sighed. _[If there’s even a way to utilize it, the magic of this place will only work for you.]_

She blinked and furrowed her brows. “And you knew it all along?”

_[Of course.]_

“That’s touching and all, but I’m not leaving you behind. Either we both go home, or no one is.”

Loki rolled his eyes. _[Don’t be a melodramatic idiot. You going alone would benefit me greater than us both being just stuck here because of some useless, misguided sentiment.]_

Well, that was a ridiculous thing to blurt out like that anyway and Loki made a lot more sense. If she got back, she could get help. She could locate Thor, work him until he agreed to help then get him to find someone capable of fixing this. Besides, they still didn’t know what they would find, perhaps it would be something to get them both home. She didn’t need magic to go through that portal, after all. In fact, Loki didn’t need it either. “I see.”

_[Great. Now, can we focus on the matter at hand?]_

“Yes, sir,” she said, “but I’m still not entirely sure what I’m trying to achieve here.”

_[Isn’t it obvious? You need to find the cavern again.]_

“Right… And how is meditation going to help with that?”

_[The purpose of meditation is cutting away all external interferences and focusing entirely on what happens inside you mind, it’s the only way to understand how your perception works. It is absolutely crucial for finding your core.]_

“I don’t think I’m capable of that.”

_[You are.]_

“Are you?”

_[Of course.]_

“Even without your magic?”

_[Focusing does not require mystical powers.]_

“How long did it take to learn to do it?”

 _[A while.]_ It was as much of an evasive answer as one could get.

“What makes you think I’d be able to get there in time?”

 _[You do what must be done,]_ he said plainly, reminding her of her own words and she really did not need further elaborations. Either she does figure it out, or… No. It needed to be done and she would do it. There was no other way.

“Okay, let’s go again.”

\---

A breeze rustled the branches above and a shower of cold droplets fell on her head and shoulders. She shuddered and groaned in frustration.

 _[Take a break,]_ Loki said. _[You are tired. You will not get anywhere in that state.]_

They’ve been trying for hours and it resulted only in Natasha growing more and more restless and irritated, which made it even harder to concentrate, which, in turn, made her even more angry in a vicious cycle.

“I can do it,” she said through grounded teeth.

His glare was dubious at best. _[Not like this. You need to rest. We will try again later.]_

“I’m not a toddler, I don’t need to be coddled with an afternoon nap.”

_[Mortals can die from sleep deprivation.]_

“It takes two weeks!”

Loki made a very unimpressed face.

“Can’t you? Die from a lack of sleep, I mean?”

_[I don’t know. I’ve never tried. But if it’s possible, it takes longer than two weeks.]_

“Is it the same with…” she started and bit her tongue. No, she was not asking that. She did not want to know. It was irrelevant. They had a brand-new plan and they would get out of this place before…

It was too late though. _[With hunger? I went without food for a couple of months before. But I was not cut away from my powers so thoroughly and I could sustain myself with tapping to the universal energy. Now? I don’t know. It will kill me, eventually, but I have no frame of reference on how long that will take.]_

“A couple of months…” she echoed numbly. “Tell me those are some Asgardian months that last like two days each and you were just trying out some extreme weight loss routine.”

He shook his head, because of course he wasn’t.

“You want to tell me about that?”

 _[No.]_ His gaze turned that familiar kind of hard, and he looked away, fixing his eyes at some unspecified point in the distance.

 _Whatever happened to you, I’m sorry_ , she thought, but didn’t say it out loud. He would mistake it for pity anyway.

\---

“I’ll try again,” she said, “since we still have a few hours of daylight left.”

_[We should head out and find a better spot for a camp.]_

“But that’s pointless. It’s best to focus on things that might actually help us.”

_[Some physical exercise will help you clear your mind. And I tire of sleeping in the mud.]_

She swallowed the voice of protest. If Loki was ready to admit his irritation it was probably as bad as it got for him and she was not going to question it. Besides, who knows, maybe some walking will help her with the meditation business. And she needed as much of that as she could get.

\---

Loki rattled his chain. It was not a new thing and it sounded deliberate, so she turned. She has been noticing for some time now that he was avoiding making sounds with his vocal cords, even if she knew, empirically, that he still could, to some extent at least. He probably decided being reduced to unintelligible grunts and groans was too demeaning and she couldn’t really blame him.

They were on the beach again. The tide was still low, and he was crouching next to one of the shallow pools left behind by the sea, his eyes fixed on something on its bottom. _[Look,]_ he said and pointed at a flat, shiny rock, just below the water’s surface. She joined him and studied the object, trying to guess what it was that he found so interesting.

The rock… moved and she jerked back, because, well, rocks were not supposed to do that. “What the…”

Loki put a finger against the muzzle, and she fell silent, freezing in place. He shifted his weight and slowly stepped into the water, his every motion drawn-out and so precise his feet didn’t even send ripples across the surface. He got closer to whatever the creature was and slowly arched down, watchful and tense, a hunter stalking their quarry. Then his hands moved, the motion almost too quick to register, and he snatched his prey out of the water. _Are you sure you’re not a space cat?_

It looked like a fish, kind of, but only if fishes were swimming sideways and had a thick layer of slime covering their bodies. Loki held it out like a trophy with a triumphant smirk, by something that was probably gills.

“What’s that?”

He squeezed what must’ve been the skull between two fingers and it gave way with a sickening crunch, then he tossed the dead husk onto the sand. She gaped, speechless.

 _[Dinner, preferably,]_ he said.

“We find the first life form on an alien moon and your first instinct is to kill it,” she said grimly. “Way to go.”

_[It’s a fish.]_

“Still.”

_[I do not see your point.]_

“It was the first alive thing we’ve seen!”

_[It wasn’t going to share the secrets of the universe with you. But it can grant you a meal, so you should be thankful for that gift.]_

She rolled her eyes. “This petty little creature will make a great offering to my mortal companion,” she said, lowering her voice and putting on a fake accent.

_[This is not how I sound like.]_

“This is _exactly_ how you sound like.”

 _[You say that because you are mad about the fish,]_ he said, trying so hard to not look offended it was almost cute. _[If there was one, there will be more. You can go and be friends with them all you like.]_

“It must be tiring to be such an asshole all the time.”

_[Not at all, it comes naturally.]_

“I bet it does,” she said and poked the fish with her finger. “Ow. It stings.”

_[That is why I did not tell you to touch it.]_

“You didn’t tell me to not touch it either,” she pointed out with reproach and put her finger in her mouth. It didn’t lessen the unpleasant sensation; it only made her tongue tingle. That wasn’t the wisest move. “Is it poisonous?”

_[I don’t think so. Just a defense mechanism.]_

“Against what?”

_[I have no idea.]_

“Apparently not against little shits like you.”

_[That’s it, I’m giving you that insults lesson, whether you want it or not.]_


	18. Shatter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which concepts are placed under revision.

_[Care to divulge what crimes did this ball of mud commit against you?]_

“It’s not mud,” she said and kept on kneading the greyish pulp between her palms. She never stopped signing while speaking and got so used to it that it felt weird to not do so now. “It’s clay… I think. I’m making a pot.”

_[I’m rather sure this is not how one is supposed to look like. Where did you find clay anyway? And why do you even need a pot?]_

“Because I haven’t finished yet, up the stream and to cook fish soup,” she said in a clipped tone. “Shut up and let me work if you have nothing constructive to add.”

He plopped down, folded his legs, leaned forth, propped his chin on his palm and watched her with a slightly amused interest.

She lasted about thirty seconds. “Seriously, you’re not helping.”

_[I thought you wanted me to shut up.]_

“I want you to shut up because I can’t look at you and at what I’m doing at the same time. Just like right now. But judgmental stares don’t do it for me either.”

_[I can tap in Morse code if that suits your mood better.]_

“You know Morse code?” she asked, dropping the blob of clay. It fell to the ground with a wet plop, spraying her face with liquid mud. She wiped it off with her forearm.

_[Yes.]_

“Why?”

_[Why what?]_

“Why the hell do you know Morse code.”

_[I saw it in a book once.]_

“So?”

_[I found it to be an amusing piece of trivia.]_

“And you decided to learn it, just like that?”

His brows furrowed and his stare was blank. _[It’s just a handful of symbols.]_

“You are really something else.”

_[You don’t have to remind me.]_

“I’m willing to believe that. So what is it, an eidetic memory?”

_[I don’t know what that means.]_

“That’s novel,” she chuckled. “It means you can remember things perfectly, each time, even after seeing them only briefly a long time ago.”

_[I wouldn’t say it works as flawlessly as that. But I’m not… terrible at learning new things.]_

“No kidding,” she smirked. “You’re more efficient than me at sign already after just a couple of… weeks, I suppose? And who’s to say where you’d be if you had a better teacher?”

 _[You seem quite competent for someone who knows only the basics,]_ Loki pointed out with a sly smile.

“I knew it’s going to come back to bite me in the ass.”

Loki reassumed his staring position, hand under the chin and all.

“What?”

He raised his eyebrows. _[Story?]_ he spelled, to avoid moving his other arm.

She should really see that coming. Not only because she lied to him about the extent of her knowledge. He told her so much about himself and some openness on her side was long overdue. She owed him, so to speak, as much as she did not want to pick at those particular scabs. “Didn’t Barton tell you?”

Loki sighed and his expression turned calculating for a while _. [He never told me anything.]_

“But you said… Back on the Helicarrier…”

_[I told you a lot of things then and most of them were not true. I never even spoke to Barton other than to give him commands. But the scepter created a link and his thoughts, hopes and dreams slipped through it. This is how I knew. He never told me your secrets. I pulled them directly from his head.]_

It’s been a while, but the familiar, vengeful anger started rising again. She gritted her teeth and breathed, in and out, trying to control it. Raging out at Loki now after she told him, over and over, that she came to terms with his deeds would only undo all the progress they’ve made. But this was Clint he was talking about…

_[You want to hit me again?]_

“What?”

_[You’re angry. I had your friend under a spell. My meddling unleashed your beast on you. I killed your boss.]_

That one was another thing she definitely didn’t want to be reminded of. “It’s not about that.”

 _[Of course it is. You can have another go. I think there’s still a spot here that’s not bruised yet.]_ He rubbed his cheek under his left eye.

“You know, it would make a lot of things so much easier if you just told me you enjoy getting hurt.”

He breathed out a silent laugh. _[I don’t. But sometimes I do feel like there’s something in me that makes it very enjoyable for others. One of those faces, I suppose.]_ He rested his hands in his lap and looked down at them for a while, turning the links of the chain between his fingers.

Her chest tightened and all the anger was gone, just like that.

She reached out. He flinched away, then tried to cover his reaction with an overexaggerated disgust. _[Your hands are dirty.]_

She shrugged and ran her fingers under his eye, leaving a clay-colored smudge behind. “Your hair needs a wash anyway. Want to go for a swim?”

 _[No, it does not,]_ he said and ran his fingers through his curls, his face making clear he reconsidered the statement. His hair got noticeably longer than it was in New York, reaching down to his shoulders at the sides, another remainder of how much time has passed. _[You’re not getting out of it so easily.]_

She sighed. “This isn’t really my story to tell, I’m just a background character, at best.”

_[You’re still in it.]_

“I guess...” she started and clenched her fists. He was right, she couldn’t wiggle out o, not without an explanation. “I learned sign language because of Barton. He was deaf when we met. Well, almost. He was… in an accident, when he was a kid. It made him deaf in one ear and almost deaf in the other and it was progressing to the point he couldn’t hear pretty much at all by the time I got to know him. I didn’t even notice at first. He adjusted so well to reading lips that it took me a week to figure it out. And then, when I became a permanent member of his team and we started to get to know each other, I decided to learn sign, so we could speak even in situations where he could not read my lips, like during the missions. No one else bothered and it was the least I could do to pay him back for what he did for me.”

_[What kind of accident?]_

She took in a long breath. Not many people knew about it and for a good reason. She couldn’t tell him. Not Loki, who invaded Clint’s brain and turned him into his puppet. It tasted like treachery, her opinion of Loki notwithstanding.

“I shouldn’t be talking about this,” she said. “I only know because Clint trusted me with a secret and I owe it to him to not betray that trust. I get that your interest comes from curiosity and not ill will. I just… I’ve done things I’m not proud of and I have hurt a lot of people too. I don’t want to add Barton to that list.”

_[Okay.]_

She frowned.

_[Loyalty is a rare virtue and I can appreciate it, even without being on the receiving end a lot.]_

She smiled and felt her cheeks flush red. “Thank you.”

_[So how does a deaf man end up being a hero?]_

“After it happened, Clint landed in some… questionable company. Life of crime and all that. But Barton is not a person who half-asses things, so he excelled at that too. His skill with bow and arrow soon made him a sought-out assassin, by all kinds of individuals. Silent and deadly.”

_[That I did know.]_

“Yeah, I guessed you would. It was right up your alley.”

Loki ignored the jab in her words. _[What happened to the man who did it to him?]_

“I never told you…”

_[Barton had a fair share of dark thoughts too. I know how being betrayed by someone you loved and respected feels like.]_

She ran her hand through her hair and let out a sigh. “No idea. Clint never told on him, there never was an official investigation or anything. Just another hurt kid, like thousands other every day. He never tried to take revenge, either.”

_[Why?]_

“I don’t know. And I don’t think Clint knows either. There’re probably multiple psychology papers written about situations like those though.”

_[What happened later?]_

“He made a high profile hit and got onto the CIA radar. That’s one of the federal agencies, like SHIELD. He got caught and made a deal. His services for his freedom. And then, when the SHIELD restructured in the early two thousands to be more of what it is now, he switched to working for them instead.”

_[Does his wife know this story?]_

She stared at him. “You know about Laura.”

_[He was thinking about her almost as much as he was about you. Does she know?]_

“What is that supposed to mean?”

_[Exactly that.]_

She fought the urge to sneer. _Like that clarified the issue_. “She does.”

_[And she still decided to stay with a trained killer under one roof and bear him children.]_

“Not a professional killer. A man who used to be one.”

_[Is there a difference?]_

They were not talking only about Clint anymore, she realized. “Of course there is. People change. That’s our thing. We learn new things and adapt to that knowledge.”

 _[I envy you your unwarranted optimism sometimes.]_

“That’s not optimism, that’s just experience and willingness to see the good side in people, including myself. You should try it one of those days.”

He made an exasperated face. _[Sure,]_ he said, the gesture broad and exaggerated. Or maybe it was supposed to mean “true”? It was the same sign. _[What’s the rest of the story? Barton could hear when I was controlling him, but mortals don’t heal damage like that. How did that change?]_

”Technology and a lot of money changing hands. Clint has proven himself a valuable asset for SHIELD, so when AIM came up with a design for a cochlear implant, one that’s able to reestablish lost brain connections or something like that, Barton got on the list. Coulson helped him arrange that and he wrote it off as operational cost. That was… two years ago, I believe. But we still used the signs from time to time later. It used to be… our thing, I guess.”

_[It’s just another reason for Barton to hate me then.]_

She looked Loki in the eyes, trying to judge whether he actually cared, or was it just something he decided would placate her, but couldn’t come up with a definite answer. Maybe it was both. “I think he would understand, given the situation.”

He laughed one of those silent, cheerless laughs and went back to fidgeting with the chain.

“Loki?”

He tipped his head up then cocked it to the side. The reddish smudge under his eye gave him a feral look.

“The thing you said when we first came here, about the guys on the jet. About Barton. Is it true? Are they really dead?”

He studied her for a moment before answering. _[I don’t know. Thor was close. Maybe he got there in time. He is no match for Maw, but he is strong still and annoying, so it might have given them time to save themselves.]_

Again, she couldn’t tell whether it was his true belief or just something he knew she wanted to hear. She decided to stick with the first option for now.

“So… Are you up for that swim or not?”

He was.

\---

 _[This is the ugliest pot in existence,]_ Loki dished the verdict out after assessing her work then went back to wringing water out of his hair.

“Thanks? I’ve tried my best.”

_[Then it’s a wonder what it would look like if you did not.]_

“I don’t see you making a better one.”

_[That’s because I’m not.]_

She made a shocked face. “No shit.”

_[Why do you want to cook soup for? I can roast the fish for you just fine if you don’t trust your cooking skills.]_

“Do you really need to ask?”

_[Would I if I did not need to?]_

“From my own experience? Yeah, I feel like you know the answers to at least a half of the questions you ask. A case could be made for eighty percent.”

He rolled his eyes. _[I’m not going to drink warm fish water.]_

“See? That’s what I’m talking about. And why not? Is your pride really more important than your life?” she said and gave his bare chest a meaningful glare.

He left his shirt out to dry after he washed it, leaving his sunken stomach and protruding bones in full, unobstructed view. He has lost some more weight, that was a given, but the change wasn’t… horrendous. A lot less prominent that it would be for a human over a similar period at least. Maybe the estimation of “months” wasn’t that far off.

Still, he needed all the energy he could get, and she couldn’t understand why he would decline.

 _[It’s not pride,]_ he said after he bore her stare for a couple moments.

“Then what is it?”

 _[I told you, I don’t take certain foods well. Most animal produce and meat don’t agree with my stomach, even on a good day.]_ He looked away and rubbed his hand across his midsection absentmindedly.

The bruises there has faded into yellowed shadows, even in the worst places. The only ones that continued to stand out against the pale skin were the newer marks he acquired from the wave; and those were healing as well. The welts on his exposed wrist and on his ankles were gone too.

“Okay, that sucks… are you sure it would be the same with some thin broth?”

 _[No, but there’s a good chance it will, particularly after so much time without food at all. And what do you think would happen if I got sick with this on?]_ he asked and pointed at his jaw.

Well, it was a good point. She nodded, a scowl pulling the corners of her lips down. “I’m sorry for not asking you first, I just wish I could do something, that’s all.”

_[I am fine.]_

“I’m sure you are,” she said grimly. “You only have the mouthpiece from hell locked on you and you haven’t had anything to eat for weeks. No big deal.”

_[What would you like me do instead? Fall to my knees, scream at the sky and tear hair away from my skull? And what good would it bring me? I know how caving in to desperation ends. This is better. I can manage.]_

“I know!” she exclaimed, her voice cracking around the edges. “That is the worst part. You shouldn’t have to. It’s not… fair.”

_[Not fair? Did you forget the part where I killed thousands?]_

“Do we have to do this again? We talked about it.”

_[No, we did not. You told me you made your peace with that so we could work together. Make no mistake, I am grateful for the dispensation you’re granting me, but that’s no reason for you to not rejoice at the justice being served.]_

Her jaw dropped and she gaped at him for a moment, stunned. “Do you really think I enjoy watching you suffer?” she said and it came out hollow. “And… This is not justice. This is some medieval, backwards, an-eye-for-an-eye vengeful bullshit. Is your pain going to help all those who died? Is your slow death going to bring them back to life somehow?”

_[How is this any different than just chopping my head off or locking me up in a cell and throwing away the key? The outcome is exactly the same.]_

She opened her mouth to speak and then clasped it shut without saying a word, realizing she had no answer. Because, really, what was the difference? Was it more humane? The swift axe, maybe, but she would have a hard time for proving that’s the case for thousands of years of imprisonment. And what’s the point anyway? The dead would stay just as dead and the destruction wouldn’t become miraculously undone when Loki’s head gets loped off or if he rots in one dungeon or another for an eternity. All it would do is deny him even a shot at righting his wrongs.

“I… I don’t know,” she whispered. She had her own crimes forgotten and she believed it to be fair; she was making up for them and she was trying to be a better person. Yet, somehow, she rarely even considered extending the same courtesy to anyone but herself. And now the hypocrisy tasted like bile on her tongue. “Maybe the whole concept of blind justice is just broken.”

That managed to rattle Loki off his train of thought. _[What?]_

“I don’t know,” she repeated. “What’s the use for it anyway?”

_[Upholding the law?]_

“Maybe.” She shrugged. “But maybe we’ve lost the balance between retribution and rehabilitation somewhere down the line.”

Loki arched his eyebrows and stared at her and the longer he did, the less surprised and more confused his expression grew, until a deep wrinkle formed on his forehead. He blinked. _[What?]_

“The laws are for protecting the living. Dead have no use for them,” she tried, the words rolling off her tongue awkwardly. “The rest is just vengeance.”

_[And what’s the alternative? Just letting me go?]_

She shrugged again with a low, purposeful roll of her shoulders. “If I knew you won’t hurt anyone innocent ever again? Yes, I guess I wouldn’t mind that.”

_[And how would you know that?]_

“Would asking you nicely do the trick?” she said with a smirk.

He shook his head in disbelief. _[You are a strange person,]_ he said, and she couldn’t tell if it was meant as a praise or as an insult. It was Loki, so it could be both at the same time just as well.

\---

There was a hand on her shoulder, so she opened her eyes and looked up angrily. “Oh, for the love of gods, am I breathing wrong again?”

She has been sitting on the beach with her eyes closed for what must’ve been an hour now, but so far only managed to get irritated by, in order: the sand, the sound of the rolling waves, the breeze twisting into her hair and pushing it into her eyes no matter how many times she brushed it off (long enough for that, but not long enough to be pulled into a ponytail that wouldn’t come apart), the sun heating up her shoulders and back, the sand again, and the thought of Loki staring at her from a hundred feet away, where she ordered him to stay, after he told her she is not breathing right one too many times.

_[I can see your fuming from under the trees, so I’d say ‘yes’?]_

“I can’t get my mind to shut up for five fucking minutes,” she groaned. “Each time I push one thought out, ten new ones take its place. I have no idea how you are able to do that, seriously, this is some next level Jedi mindfuck.”

Loki’s gaze was so delightfully devoid of understanding that she burst out laughing. He raised an eyebrow. _[What’s so funny?]_

“You might hold the secrets of the universe in your head, but I reign supreme when it comes to pop culture references. And, believe me, this is not something I get a lot of opportunities to say.”

His stare was still blank.

“Popular culture? You know, the stuff you watch or read or listen to for fun?”

_[I noticed that mortals dedicate a lot of effort to not challenging their minds.]_

“Oh, come on, no need to be so condescending about it. Don’t you have entertainment at all in Asgard?”

Loki shrugged. _[They do.]_

“What it is? Orgies? Gladiator fights? Dancing naked in the moonlight? Wrestling with giant wolves?”

_[Asgard has no moon.]_

“And that’s your only gripe with my list?”

Loki breathed out a small laugh and sat down. _[It’s mostly feasts, sometimes with musical or theatrical performances. Or hunts, with feasts to follow.]_

“Badly sung poetry?”

_[That too.]_

“Overexaggerated tales of valor?”

_[I see you got to celebrate with Thor.]_

“Spot on deduction, as always,” she chuckled. “Seems kind of dull though. Especially after thousands of years of that.”

 _[You have no idea,]_ he said, and a small smile sneaked into the corners of his eyes. _[Luckily, the Asgard libraries are vast and contain enough reading material for multiple lifetimes, even mine.]_

“So you were just staying inside reading books all day, like a total nerd?”

 _[Most of the time. Or training. Or exploring the universal powers. Or visiting other realms, alone or as a part of Thor’s entourage. Or sitting on council meetings as Thor’s substitute.]_ Loki let out a sigh. _[I wonder how he fares now that he has to sit through those on his own.]_

“That bad?”

_[No. I quite enjoyed those. But my golden not-brother has little patience for politics. Or anything.]_

She chuckled again and realized she wasn’t angry anymore. “That might be the one thing I have in common with Thor then. Seeing as I can’t get even get myself to focus properly.”

He cocked his head and raised an eyebrow.

“Is there any other way? To reach that inner place? To find the cavern again?”

_[No.]_

She let go of an exasperated breath and pressed her knuckles to her eyes. “I don’t think I can do this. I can’t… I don’t know how to clear my mind. It’s impossible. I’m sorry.”

He studied her for a couple of moments, his eyes wary. _[Let us try something a bit different then. Lie down,]_ he said finally and patted the sand in front of his folded legs, _[on your back.]_

She did and tipped her head back to look at him.

 _[Try to relax, as if you were trying to fall asleep.]_ The signs were a bit harder to read upside down. _[And focus on my touch. On the contact points on your skin. Nothing else. Use it as your anchor and let go of the rest, like you did when I guided you out. Do you understand?]_

“I suppose… You think that will work?”

_[Most people find touch distracting, but maybe that’s what you need – a distraction. It does not hurt to try.]_

She nodded in agreement.

_[You can close your eyes now.]_

She let her eyelids fall. The sun painted their insides red. She wiggled her shoulders and thighs to make herself more comfortable, the sand shifting under her and accommodating her shape.

She managed to keep her inhale from hitching when Loki’s fingers touched her temples, one on each side, then slid down below her cheekbones. More digits followed, until his thumbs settled gently over her eyes, stopping the red afterglow. She relished in the sensation, the cool touch drinking excessive warmth from her sun-bathed skin.

She imagined herself floating, weightless, in a body-temperature water. No light, no touch, no smell. Perfect silence. Just Loki’s hands holding her head above the water.

She counted the points of junction, one on each eyelid, two on each cheek, one on the angles of her jaw, one next to each ear. The touch was light, the pressure almost imperceptible, but most definitely there at the same time.

Her thoughts twisted, winding around the anchor points, billowing like whisps of smoke. They circled them, like a school of minnows, dancing around a light, drowsy from the wintery cold, yearning for a restful hibernation. Each moor a spark of brilliant glow, and each fish a silvery blade. And each time they touched a sprout of frost rose and crawled along the edge, encumbering it, and turning it into thin, brittle ice. A light shake and the icicles were breaking away and falling into the dark void, shattering into millions of tiny shards, flowing, swelling, rolling around the stars until they turned into grey, straggly mist and strayed away.

The lights were going out now, one after the other, until only the two brightest points on her eyelids remained. Then those too were gone, and her head submerged, and she drifted down into the dark abyss.

When she opened her eyes, she was in the cavern again.


	19. Pieces

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You can only play it tough for so long.

It looked different now, somehow. It was darker, for the lack of the bright ray of light on the other side, but not completely black either. She couldn’t tell where the sparse ambient radiance was coming from, but it was illuminating both the silky floor and the shiny obsidian walls well enough for the features to be recognizable. The roof was still too high and too darkened to see.

She started walking. The floor seemed to sing in response, emitting waves not quite within her hearing range, in sync with the ripples on the surface with her every step. She couldn’t tell if it was a new thing or if she was too preoccupied with the creature to notice that before. She aimed her steps at the part of the far-away wall that the strip of illumination was usually occupying. At least she thought so, it was a lot harder to tell directions without it.

Looking around now, without the fear and anxiety, she realized the place was not as featureless as she first assumed. The ephemeral glow bouncing off the glossy walls, the smooth texture of the floor made it feel eerily serene, even if full of contradictions: dark and bright, raw and polished, silent and full of hushed sounds and small echoes at the same time.

Maybe Loki was right, and it was indeed how the inside of her brain looked like? Well, if that’s the case, there’s a surprisingly low amount of red to it.

She’s been going for… a while, she supposed. The timeless feeling was back at it with full force, messing with her head. The opposite wall wasn’t getting any closer either, despite her efforts.

Then again, maybe walking wasn’t necessary. She stopped and sat down, crossing her legs. The floor was pleasantly warm and gentle vibrations travelled up her nerves when she dragged her fingers on the surface.

She closed her eyes and pulled forth the image of the cavern, then imagined herself on the other side of it, the wall just a couple feet away from her. She breathed in and out, deep, even breaths… No, she shouldn’t be focusing on the breathing.

Did the rule apply here as well? She wasn’t even physically present here after all, so it’s not like she needed to follow any of the previous instructions, did she? On the other hand, it wasn’t the physiological function of the body that mattered, so just her focusing on inhaling and exhaling was detrimental and prevented her from truly clearing her mind of all _thought_.

How did it all this work anyway? If this was her mind, why wasn’t she here each time she fell asleep? Was it about intent? Loki never told her to look specifically for the place, just that she needed to clear her head and let go of all the thoughts and feelings crawling inside her brain. It made no sense then; now it kind of did, even if only in a very vague way. This was the… default setting, the frame of mind that is not preoccupied with anything else, or so it seemed.

A loading screen.

She leaned back, her palms brushing the floor as she spread her arms apart. It was a relaxing experience. Calm. Peaceful. All her worries has faded to insignificance. The lurking anger, the creeping fear and sense of weakness and resignation she always needed to fight were… not gone, not entirely, but subdued. Declawed. Tame.

She opened her eyes.

The ceiling was not just dark. It was the definition of blackness. The endless void, bared of all light, so dense it seemed to suck the illumination away from the room. It held both the threat of oblivion and the promise of eternal peace, scary and magnificent at the same time, filling her with longing for something she couldn’t even fully picture. 

It made her think about Loki. She wished he were here, so he could experience the sight as well. The sharp, primal beauty of the bare nothingness seemed like something he would appreciate.

The tears came prickling, her vision growing blurry. She let them fall from the corners of her eyes and roll down the sides of her face. Those were not the tears of sadness, nor of pain, nor of joy. They just… were. It felt cleansing, in a way. Playing on sensibilities she didn’t even know she possessed, touching the strings of her soul that never sounded before.

She blinked the tears away in the end. Now was not time to contemplate, she had a purpose, even if finding the light creature was even less of an alluring prospect now. It invaded her mind and profaned its peace with fear and treats.

But there was no other way.

She pulled herself up and started walking again. The wall seemed closer now, but still far away. She started running, a light jog first, then hit into a sprint, when she noticed it is not making her tired at all. The perks of metaphysical representations, she supposed. All the hurt she experienced here before _was_ only a creation of her mind, nothing else, she could see that now, very clearly.

She reached the wall finally and again, if someone asked how long it took, she wouldn’t be able to clarify the issue. The face of hewn stone stood before her, the facets reflecting the light ever so slightly. She started walking along it, dragging her fingers on the wall as she went. It was just as warm as the floor, even if not nearly as smooth, the ridges and kinks bumpy under her fingertips. There were no sharp edges though. Or any other irregularities, as far as she could see. No openings, no nothing, just an expanse of dark, chiseled rock all around the room.

Well, that was a waste of no-time.

There was one more thing she could try. “Hey! Light ghost… person?! I’m back!”

The sound travelled across the cave, bounced off the walls and returned as an echo, but nothing else happened. “I just want to talk.”

Nothing.

She sighed. She shouldn’t expect this to be so easy, should she? It was only the first step, Loki has said. There is still a lot more she needed to learn.

_Okay, Natasha, how do you get out?_

She knew the easy answer – call out to Loki. It always worked, she always managed to get through to him and he has always heard her, somehow. She was able to do that even before learning anything about the place. But it was not a sustainable solution. If she was to… learn mystic arts, however ridiculous that sounded, and use this place for that, she needed a consistent way in and out that required no external help.

The paths work both ways, after all.

She sat down and closed her eyes again. An anchor point, that’s what she needed. This was what Loki provided her with before, now she only had to find one without his help.

It was easier to empty her mind here, with all the tumbling balls of anxiety brushed away, with the disquiet muffled. She pulled forth a vision of her own body, resting on the sand, unmoving. She recalled the warm sand under her hands, the sun heating her skin. She could feel the salty moisture in the air, hear the slow roll of waves in the distance and a fire cracking nearby.

A _fire_?

Her eyelids fluttered open and she sat up. She was back on the beach. The sun has moved and was hovering above the horizon line. And there was indeed a fire going two dozen feet away. Loki was sitting next to it, holding what she assumed was the fish he caught on a stick over the low flames.

“Hey! I’m back! I made it!” she yelled to him. He cocked his head up, threw a thumbs up and waved at her to come over.

She got up and registered, with quite a bit of surprise, that she felt rested, like she was actually sleeping and not wandering in the dark recesses of her own brain for the last hours. It made some sense, her body was asleep, even if her mind was not. Or was it? How did that work anyway?

“I didn’t know you found me too unskilled to fix my own food,” she said when she sat down next to Loki.

If glares could kill, she would drop dead in an instant.

“Come on, you know I’m joking. I do appreciate all the tender care you bestow upon me. I hope you know that.”

Loki inclined his head and his face softened and he looked at her with one of those weird, contemplative stares. She felt that there was something he wanted to say, but his hands were busy and, in the end, he directed his attention back to the fire. She watched in silence as he turned the roast a couple more times over the flames, then took it off the fire and slid it off the stick onto a leaf he had prepared. He picked it up and handed it to her.

“Thank you,” she said with a small bow as she accepted the dish. It looked promising and she realized how hungry she was. 

_[I had nothing better to do anyway and the fish needed to be cooked before it went bad.]_

Always so utilitarian. Loki would rather die than admit doing something just from good will. Like being kind to others without a reason was a weakness, not a virtue.

She was grateful anyway.

She dug her fingers into the soft, tender meat. The fish had no scales, only a leathery skin and it parted easily, revealing steaming, white insides. She blew on it to cool it off a bit before digging in. The meat was lean and juicy and peeled away from the bones without effort. She put a piece in her mouth tentatively and a rich flavor took over her taste buds.

“It’s delicious,” she mumbled with her mouth full. “Did you do something to season it?”

_[I kept it in seawater after cleaning and carving it.]_

“That’s an inspired move, I must admit. Too bad you can’t try it yourself.”

He shrugged, but a small frown still found its way to his forehead. Yeah, she couldn’t even begin to imagine how would it feel to have food so close after being devoid of it for so long and still be unable to even get a taste. He acted like it did not bother him for the most part, but she suspected it was not that easy. Even alien gods needed to eat and it was obvious he suffered the consequences of hunger, no matter how hard he tried to convince her otherwise.

“I can go away and eat on my own if it helps,” she offered. Then, noticing him tensing, she added, “I don’t mean it as an insult. I know you can take a lot, but there’s no need for you to torment yourself with watching me eating when you can’t.”

_[I could walk away as well. And yet I did not. Skip imposing your pity on me and eat before it gets cold.]_

She sighed. What was she thinking? Loki never failed to misinterpret sympathy as contempt and it just pained her to see him crash against that wall, again and again, instead of accepting it for what it was – someone caring about how he feels, without any ulterior motives.

It made her wonder, all over again, how his life have looked like for him to turn out so bitter. The bits and pieces she knew about his family situation now were as bleak as those go. Did he even have any friends? It was always just Odin this or Thor this or Thor’s friends that, like there was nobody in Loki’s life who wasn’t there because of the familial relations or imposed on him by the situation he found himself in. And that sounded like a dreary, lonely existence.

 _[Tell me about what happened when you got to the cavern_ , _]_ he said, pulling her out of her deliberations. _[With all the details. Anything could be important.]_

She did. He eyed her weirdly when she got to the void part and admitted it reminded her of him, but did not comment.

 _[Yes,]_ he said, after she told him about finding her way out. _[That’s the basic concept. You should try a couple more times, to school your mind into following the cues quicker. It’s usually trained until it can be done instantly and without prior preparation. Accessing it while still conscious and tethered in reality is an important step, but with the time frame you operate on and with what you want to achieve it should be enough to get you to do it on demand. Then we can move on to the more advanced subjects.]_

“Like what?”

_[Finding your core and learning to use it.]_

“Like, actual magic?”

_[Yes.]_

She licked her fingers, wrapped the remnants of her meal in the leaf it came on and tossed the bundle into the fire. “I’m going to Hogwarts!”

\---

There was no point in moving further than it was necessary to keep the tide from claiming their camp, the sun was getting ready to set, so they just built a new fire a hundred yards inland.

Loki went off to gather more wood, so it would last them through the night. She grabbed a burning stick from the old fire and carried it to the new spot. She did not want to use the batteries to light it again, especially since there were only a couple left with the charge still in them and she wasn’t too keen on getting back to the old-fashioned method.

She couldn’t help herself from waving the burning stick like a wand, then felt ridiculously glad Loki was not there to see her. 

\---

It wasn’t long after Loki fell asleep that he started thrashing. The nightmares seemed to subside for him as well lately, either gone altogether or not vivid enough to translate into fits. But his luck has run out, apparently, and they were back with a vengeance. She rushed over and grabbed his shoulder, trying to shake him awake.

He let out a keening sound and recoiled, then his hands shot right up to his face.

“No! Loki, stop it!” she yelled, but it made no difference, of course. Before she could even think about what she’s doing, she scrambled on top of him, his stomach trapped between her tights, then slapped his hands away from his face and pinned him to the ground by his wrists. For a second it felt like she succeeded but then his eyes opened, wide and wild and full of unknown terrors and he jerked one hand free. It flew straight to her throat. She dodged and tried grabbing it back, but he twisted under her, dislodging her and bringing her down to the ground. She rolled onto her back and he threw himself on her, holding her down. One hand seized her neck, the other clasped on her arm, keeping it down.

The grip on her throat was firm, squeezing it just enough to cut off air, but not hard enough to break her neck. She tried prying his fingers away using her free hand, to no avail, then she struggled to get free, bodily, trying to wiggle from under him, but he was pinning her down with all his weight. His face was right above her, his eyes lost and unseeing, blood dripping from the muzzle and onto her chin.

Her battle-trained brain provided her with a list of at least half a dozen soft spots she could attack to get him off of her. Eyes, nose, liver, throat. She could use the muzzle against him too.

She did neither. She looked at the pure terror in his eyes she just couldn’t bring herself to hurt him, the feeling winning over her survival instinct.

Was this it? Was she going to die by Loki’s hand after all and without him ever realizing what he was doing? Did it even matter? She was going to die here anyway. The whole magic thing was a fool’s errand, she knew it. They both knew it, deep in their hearts, they were just too stubborn to admit defeat. Maybe it’s better if it’s quick? She wouldn’t have to face being left alone. She was the lucky one in this transaction.

Her head started to swim, the lack of oxygen slowly but surely turning her brain off, piece by piece.

She imagined how he will react once he regains consciousness and finds her dead. She remembered his shock when he hurt her wrist and this time it would be so much worse. She let go of his hand and reached up to his face. She brushed her fingers across his cheek. “It’s okay,” she mouthed, “I know you don’t mean it.”

There were red spots in her vision. She waited for the darkness to claim her.

It did not. The grip lessened and Loki’s eyes focused. He pulled his hand away like if she was on fire, then rolled off of her. He landed flat on his back and hid his face in his hands. His chest was heaving.

She did not move for a moment, just lying there, panting and trying to get her mind back into a working order. Then she rubbed her throat, took in a long breath and swallowed to assess the damage. It felt sore, but nothing seemed broken or torn, even though he had enough strength to wring her neck and crush her windpipe without blinking an eye. But he did not. Even consumed by a nightmare he was showing restraint. It was defense, not offense. She should’ve known better than trying to force herself on him like that.

Loki let out a deep, stifled sob, his face still hidden.

“Loki,” she rasped, the words just tumbling out without much coherence, “it’s fine. It was my fault. I’m good. Nothing happened.” She could taste blood in her mouth. Panic spiked before she realized it’s not hers. Apparently, it did not matter, aliens or humans, blood was blood, and it all tasted the same.

She dragged herself up. There was another sob and she bend over Loki’s languid frame. “Can you hear me?”

For a couple seconds he did not react, but then he took his hands away from his face and nodded, slightly and uncertainly, without even raising his head off the ground. His eyes were shiny and the shadows of fear and loss and desperation were still etched into his expression, plain as a day. He looked beaten, fragile. So very human.

She leaned in closer and draped her arms around his shoulders, then rested her cheek on his chest. She could feel it rise and fall with each of his jagged breaths. His rapid heartbeat filled her ear. “It’s all right,” she whispered. “We are going to be just fine.”

After a while Loki pushed himself up on his elbows and she started to move back but froze when his hand reached for her throat again. Her breath caught against her will, even though she knew – just knew – he wouldn’t hurt her, now that he was no longer stuck in whatever horror-filled vision it was. So she did not jerk away, despite her animalistic brain yelling at her to do so.

He wiped the blood off her lips with his thumb, then his fingers traced what must’ve been a forming bruise around her neck, his touch light, gentle even. A deep wrinkle showed up between his eyebrows and his eyelids fell closed. He started to pull away, but she stopped him, wrapping her fingers around his wrist, and pressing his palm back to the side of her neck. “It’s all right,” she repeated, more confidently. She mirrored the pose, placing her other hand onto the crook of his shoulder. She bowed closer, until their foreheads touched. “Don’t forget, I’m not a softie and it takes a lot to hurt me for real. You made me jump from a fucking waterfall, this is nothing compared to that.”

He gave off a small, brittle sound, something between a chuckle and a sob. Then he curled up, turning to the side and drawing his knees to his chest. His head slid down to her lap and he buried his face in her thigh. His breath hitched, his shoulders shook and his hands clutched at her clothes. The sobs were stifled at first, but then he broke down entirely, tears washing away his defenses. She held him in silence, rocking back and forth and rubbing his arm slowly as tears soaked into her uniform.

She ran her fingers through his hair and he tensed, but then tucked in even closer, the metal of the muzzle pressing into her flesh, its sharp edges and coldness discernible even through a layer of fabric. She ignored it, her hand still stroking Loki’s arm soothingly, until his sobs subsided, his breathing returned to normal and the broken god fell back asleep, still curled up in her lap.

\---

She did not want to disturb Loki’s rest, he needed as much as he could get. She gritted her teeth to ward off the numbness in her limbs and sat in silence, watched the fire slowly burn down to embers and listened to Loki’s breathing.

She couldn’t help but think – all over again – about what horrors he had to go through for just the memory of them to be so raw, to have so much effect on him. Loki was not easy to break, not easy to frighten, not easy to push to desperation, but here he was, crumbled and defeated, by echoes of his past. And thinking about the real deal made her skin crawl.

Or maybe it was not one particular thing. Maybe it was years upon years of grief and despair and hurt, welled up behind his proud, strict façade, until he just couldn’t keep it in anymore. Even gods could only be strong for so long and something told her that counseling and therapy were not a thing in Cloud Viking. She was trying her best, but her best was not nearly enough. He needed a real, professional help. Someone who would know how to untangle the mess of his memories, who would teach him how to come to terms with them so they wouldn’t haunt him no longer. If only they could get back to Earth, she could hook him up with…

No, that was a pointless notion. No one would be willing to actually try to help Loki. For most, he would be a liability. And SHIELD would just toss him in a cell then hand the keys to Thor so he could ship him back to Asgard. And that was the optimistic scenario. The pessimistic one was a lot bleaker, because now they could add an escape attempt to the list of charges, which would change the situation enough to allow Pierce to disregard any previous agreements and hold on to Loki interminably. No, if they ever made it back, she would have to keep Loki out of SHIELD’s custody and Council’s grabby hands, then convince Thor to help without ratting them out so they could deal with that fucking muzzle business without alerting higher authorities in the process, both those of Earth and those of Asgard. Then she could try finding someone unaffiliated to assist them…

She stopped and turned the last thought around in her head. Was she really considering helping Loki get away with his crimes? Well, apparently, she was. And not just considering. The decision was made in her mind when she wasn’t looking. And it wasn’t even that hard to come up with.

“Yeah, I suppose we _are_ friends,” she whispered to the sleeping figure, answering the outstanding question, then smiled at the darkness.

She dragged her hand through his hair again. The intimacy of the gesture felt inappropriate but oddly comforting at the same time. And Loki was soundly asleep on her lap right now, so the definition of personal space has already been placed under revision, apparently. Her fingers caught on a tangle and she did her best to unravel it without pulling too hard. Despite all the injuries and starvation, Loki’s curls were still thick and retained most of their natural sheen and she wondered whether it was a matter of his strange alien genes or the magic that changed his physique. Whichever it was, it worked splendidly, even if they were considerably more tousled now. She wished she had a brush, one of those with natural bristles that were just perfect for curly hair. She ordered one online on a whim once and could never go back to regular ones. Hell, her own mane could use a good combing as well. Some conditioner, too; it was taking the predicament with not nearly as much dignity and she already considered just cutting it short with a blade, more than once. It wouldn’t be perfect, that’s a given, but it would still be an improvement and she wouldn’t have to deal with it being in her eyes all the time.

Maybe she could ask Loki to do it for her? He did not strike her as the one to keep up to date with recent hair fashion trends, but she suspected he would still do a better job than whatever she could come up with without a mirror. Besides, he turned up with a lot of unexpected masteries over the weeks here, so who knows what else he could do?

Yeah, she would ask him in the morning. That would make a good distraction while they both pretended nothing happened during the night.

\---

_[You want me to do what?]_

“Cut my hair.”

_[With a knife.]_

“Yep. I saw you whetting it on a stone, so I assume it’s as sharp as it gets.”

_[Why would you want your hair short, like a peasant?]_

“Wait, that’s a thing in Asgard?”

_[Yes.]_

“Well, your highness, it is not so in the provincial lands of Midgard. We cut our hair the way we fucking want it. Besides, have you seen anyone but angsty teens, rock stars and bums running around with long bangs on Earth?”

Now she managed to offend him, just great. “Hey, I’m not saying you’re either of those. Although a case could be made for the rock star, seeing your affinity for grand entrances.” She chuckled, but Loki was not amused. He probably did not even know who a rock star is in the first place and did not seem too interested to find out. “I get it, this is how it’s done on the floaty rock. I’m just saying it is not something we humans do.”

 _[I’m not taking offence,]_ he said, as if sensing her thoughts, _[and I did notice.]_

“Then why are you calling me a commoner for wanting my hair short?”

_[It seems… weird to me. Having your hair shorn off, often crudely, is a common punishment for criminals or disobedient slaves in Asgard.]_

“We are not in…” she choked on a word, realizing what he just said. “Slaves? Really?”

He crooked his head and eyed her with a frown. _[Yes?]_

“You tell me this supposedly super-duper advanced society, with magic, flying castles and shit, is still keeping slaves?”

He stared at her for a moment, his eyes growing dark and ominous. _[It is not common, but certain crimes could make you into one. Like treason.]_

“That’s fucked up. You can’t own… a person.”

_[It’s not done to Aesir criminals, of course.]_

“But other, just as sentient races are fair game?”

Loki shrugged and looked down at his hands.

“Wait, is that what could happen to you?”

He huffed out a laugh, but it came out somewhat jagged. _[I don’t know. It depends on whether I’m still considered royalty or not and that seems to be still up in the air, for Odin to decide. Whatever my sentence would be, I’m sure the All-father would find a way to make it…]_ he paused and rubbed the nape of his neck, _[poetic enough. Or he would just order my head chopped off. Or anything in between, depending on what mood he would be in that day.]_

“There’s no… trial? No jury or witnesses, no way to defend yourself?”

 _[The king is the law in Asgard. Whatever he decides becomes justice.]_ He took in a long breath. _[I would probably be able to get a few words in. At least if Odin bothered to remove the gag first and I’m not entirely sure he would. He had Thor lock it on me for some reason, after all.]_

So that wasn’t Thor’s brilliant idea. No matter, he was still the one who decided to use it and that alone placed a lot of the blame on him. And fuck, imagining Loki standing before a one man’s court – without even being able to utter a single word in his defense when his fate dangled on a slim thread of his estranged father’s whim – was not creating a pretty picture.

Loki shifted and stretched his leg. She looked at him, at the small, sad smile pulling at the corners of his eyes, at his resigned, downcast pose, at the way his fingers fiddled with the frayed hem of his shirt. He knew all that and yet still put up no fight when he was put in chains to be sent to face his judgement.

“Then why did you accept your defeat so easily?”

His brows furrowed and he glared at her. His eyes drifted down, to the fresh bruise on her neck. She couldn’t see it, but it felt tender and, judging from the way he cringed, it had to be coming along splendidly. _[It beat the alternative,]_ he said.

“The alternative?”

He shrugged. _[It is not important.]_

“How can…”

 _[Do you want me to cut your hair or not?]_ he interrupted, the anger twisting its way into his features rapidly.

So that was another one of _those_ subjects. “Yeah, I do.”

_[Go put your head in water.]_

She stared at him for a moment, before she understood it was not some obscure Asgardian insult that didn’t translate properly, but an actual instruction. “Yes, sir,” she muttered and wandered off towards the shore, her mind still fixed on what the “not important” part of their conversation could be.


	20. Lessons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Natasha receives a lesson on magic, Aesir justice and the value of self-control.

“Just don’t take too much,” she said, “I don’t want to look like a commoner. Or a _slave_.” Despite all the disdain she poured into the word it still refused to leave her lips without tripping on her teeth. Seriously, what the fuck, Asgard? “I would also appreciate if you didn’t stab me in the neck,” she sang, then quickly added, “that was me trying to be funny, by the way. I know you won’t.”

An irritated sigh was all she got as a response. If someone told her just a few weeks ago she would be comfortable with teasing a mute alien standing behind her with a blade in their hand, already pretty annoyed with her, she would just laugh at the ridiculousness of the notion, yet here she was.

Still, there was no point in escalating just for the sake of a stupid joke.

Loki’s hands were surprisingly gentle, despite his obvious annoyance. His fingers brushed through her hair, he grabbed a strand, and she heard an unmistakable sound of a slashing blade. It was indeed pretty damn sharp, sharper maybe that she ever bothered to get it. It was the spare one after all, she only needed it pointy enough to stick into people.

Loki repeated the process, and she felt another lock rolling to her shoulders and down to the sand.

“I always thought that the time when I cut my hair in a bathroom of a moving train in Estonia with a pair of rusty surgical scissors was going to be the weirdest haircut of my life, but this one takes the cake,” she laughed. “And if you’re wondering why I did that… Well, I was running from Serbian mafia at the time and I needed to disappear. I cut my hair and dyed it black with shoe polish. Let me tell you, it’s a bitch to wash off. And if you want to ask what Serbian mafia was doing there – beats me.” She chuckled again. There was another annoyed sigh and Loki’s fingers brushed against her jaw, tipping her head back. “What, don’t you find my spy stories amusing? Everyone always loves those. Particularly the made-up ones. Not that this one was made up. It wasn’t. Maybe that’s why it wasn’t that entertaining…”

Loki let go of her hair and moved into her field of view. _[Did I break something besides your throat that it made you this talkative?]_ He still had the knife in his hand, and he balanced it between his fingers as he spoke. She was sure he was going to stab himself in the palm by mistake any second. He did not. 

She knitted her eyebrows. “Does it really bother you to hear me talk?” She did not try to hide the hint of disappointment from her tone.

There was a momentary pause before he answered. _[No,]_ he said and the frown on his face mellowed. His hands started up, but he hesitated and let them drop to his sides, then turned to get on with the task.

“No, please, do tell me,” she twisted around to look at him.

 _[It’s nothing. Just…]_ His fist unfurled from the sign and hovered in front of his face. _[Being unable to respond is what bothers me. I don’t need to be reminded of the things I cannot have anymore.]_ There was something raw in his expression, leftover doubt and vulnerability that weren’t wiped out by the restful sleep fully.

She rubbed her eyelids. She should have known it affects him that way. “You can always growl at me if I say something stupid,” she offered.

_[I would rather not.]_

She was about to make some snide remark about pride and the like but then she understood the emotions on his face and the realization froze the blood in her veins. “It’s not only punishing you for fighting it. It hurts you each time you make a sound too, doesn’t it?” she said quietly.

He glanced at her then hung his head low, with a small nod at the end.

“That’s… I don’t even know. Royally messed up, that’s for starters,” she said. “Why would it do that?”

_[Isn’t that the point of gags? To make the wearer silent?]_

“You can’t speak, isn’t that enough of a point?”

He shrugged. _[I don’t know. Perhaps it is not. Perhaps Odin decided I needed to learn a lesson with it too,]_ he said without looking at her still.

“A lesson?”

 _[To know my place, I presume.]_ He tugged a stray curl behind his ear. _[A spell cancelling any sound coming out or rendering vocal cords unusable would be a lot simpler to cast, but…]_

“But Odin went for one allowing you to use your voice then hurting you each time you do it instead,” she finished for him, her tone empty. She sucked in air through her clenched teeth. What kind of father does this to their own child? “Was it… always like this, for you?”

_[Like what?]_

“Odin being this... strict. Vindictive. Cruel.”

Loki sunk to his knees, sat on his haunches and stuck the blade into the sand. _[I never saw it that way. I thought he is harsh because he wants me to be stronger. That he punishes me without explaining the reasons because he knows that I will understand it eventually and be better for it. That I get locked up for offenses that Thor would get away with being told off for because he knows I will reflect on my misgivings in solitude while my… while Thor would not.]_

“Locked up? Like… in prison?”

Loki rolled his shoulder then studied his fingernails for a while. _[It started just with confining me to my chambers when I misbehaved as a kid, for a few days at a time. That did not work well as discipline because I didn’t mind being alone and still had all my usual distractions available. So, when we burned down the old Grir’s smithery while fooling around, Thor and Fandral got whipped and lectured and could forget their punishment by the same afternoon. I’ve spent three months in the dungeons. To teach me what could become of me if I won’t learn how to behave. That was the first time. It went downhill from there.]_ He adjusted the shackle on his wrist. _[I’ve spent seven thousand four hundred twenty two days of my life in some sort of confinement. Most of it was by Odin’s decree.]_

She stared at him, stunned. “That’s…“ she paused, trying to do math in her head. It wasn’t easy and, when she finally reached the figure, it sent her thoughts reeling. “That’s…twenty years,” she stuttered. And Loki has counted. Every. Single. Day.

 _[A bit longer if you count with Asgardian time cycles.]_ He chuckled, but it sounded empty _._ Haunted. _[At least now I know why. You must keep your Jotun whelp on a short chain or else its devious nature will take over and it will run rampant and ruin everything.]_

“Was all of it… deserved?” _Was any?_

_[Depends on your definition of ‘deserved’. Most of it was for a reason, that’s for sure.]_

“I mean sentences that were not for stupid pranks or accidents.”

He scratched his nose and pondered on the question for a moment. _[I’d say that time I lost Lady Sif’s hand in marriage in a dice game was probably justified. Or when I tried to sabotage Eitri and Brokk in the making of the Mjolnir. Or when I stole Heimdall’s sword and Thor almost died by its blade.]_

“Was that on purpose?”

_[The stealing part was, then it kind of got out of control.]_

“How long was your sentence for that?”

_[To quote Odin: count the days your brother spends in the infirmary bed, as you will not see the light for sevenfold.]_

“And how long was Thor in bed?”

_[Sixteen days. Then another seventy-eight in his own rooms, which apparently counted as well.]_

“Well, to be honest, that doesn’t sound that bad for a murder attempt.”

 _[I did not try to murder him.]_ He gave her an indignant, sideways stare, but then his expression shifted to a slightly guiltier one _. [Not that time, at least. Thor found me out and took the sword. Instead of returning it like I thought he would, he lent it to Volstagg first. Then they sparred. You see, it was not long after he was gifted his hammer. No regular arm can be a match for Mjolnir. Thor yearned to battle-try it against an enchanted weapon. But his idiot friend had no idea how powerful of a tool he has in his hand and he blasted Thor with the Bifrost beam. I wasn’t even there when that happened.]_

Oh, she didn’t like where this was going. “What was Thor’s punishment? Or that other guy’s?”

_[I don’t know. News are slow when you’re shut away in a cell and no one is allowed to talk to you. And Thor or any of his friends never mentioned it afterwards, the incident was long forgotten by the time I was permitted to leave.]_

She blinked. “How old were you again?”

_[Twenty… four, I believe. Not that I know my true birth date, but I suppose it can’t be far off.]_

“And how old are you when you’re officially an adult in Asgard?”

_[There’s no such special age. You are considered an adult after your first adventure in which you earn the right to be called a man. Or when you can bear children, if you’re a woman.]_

She glowered at him. “Were you?”

_[I knew what I was doing. I was not a child anymore.]_

She pressed her fists to her eyes. Because, yeah, that was a “no”. The almighty king of everything sentenced a kid, or an equivalent of a teenager at best – _his own son_ – to years of prison. For a training accident that Loki wasn’t even around for. She didn’t even want to ask whether the “no light” part was literal or just a figure of speech. Because she suspected what the answer would be, and it was not a confirmation she needed.

And, just like that, she wasn’t asking herself “why did Loki snap” anymore. “Why didn’t it happen earlier” was the more valid question now.

There was a pat on her shoulder. She pulled her fists from her eyes and blinked the blurriness away.

_[Do you want the rest of the haircut or did you reconsider allowing a criminal like me anywhere near you with a knife?]_

She ran her hand against the soft patch of freshly cut hair on the back of her head. “You have to finish what you started. How else am I to retain my right to blame you if it turns out terrible?”

He picked the blade back up and moved to get up.

“One more thing, before I shut up. Why did you steal that sword?”

_[Because I could.]_

\---

“How do I look?” she asked as she tousled her new hairdo. It’s been a while since she had it cut so short. It felt strange, but kind of refreshing. A lot more suitable for the weather, too.

_[Like a commoner.]_

“Don’t be so hard on yourself, I know you tried your best.”

Loki rolled his eyes.

“You sure you don’t want a haircut as well?”

He glowered. _[No.]_

“Is this ‘no’ as in ‘no, I am sure I don’t want a haircut’ or in ‘no, I am not sure and maybe I do want a haircut’?

_[No, I am sure I don’t want a haircut.]_

“Too bad. I think you’d look cute in shorter hair.”

He crooked his head and frowned. _[That’s another reason not to do it.]_

“No, totally, we can’t have that! What would all those people here think about you…”

He glared at her. _[I am not going to allow you near my hair and no amount of trying to convince me will change my mind, so you might as well spare yourself the effort.]_

“Is this some Asgardian royalty thing?”

_[No.]_

“Some intergalactic fashion trend I don’t know about?”

_[No.]_

“A fetish?”

_[Why do you care so much?]_

“Honestly? I don’t. But it fascinates me why such a trite subject is getting your hackles up so high and I’m trying to get you mad in hopes you’ll tell me the reason so I’d piss off. Which, now that I spelled it out, sounds even lower than it did in my head. I’m sorry.”

He flopped down onto the sand, leaned back and covered his eyes with his arm against the brightness of the sky. She stepped closer and stood astride over him with her hands on her hips, blocking the sun. He slowly pulled the arm away from his face. _[It is not a rule written in stone, but it is customary for Aesir men to not grow their hair out before the rite of passage is complete. As in, the first grand act of valor,]_ he added, noticing her hesitant glare, _[that gets you acknowledged as a true warrior.]_

“That’s… well, it fits in with all the previous info you’ve shared at least. And, I suppose that if you’re resilient enough to vanquish your enemies, you’re probably ready to deal with brushing your mane twice a day,” she chuckled. “So, what was yours? The _grand act of valor_?”

_[There was none. I never earned it. Tricking your enemies with illusions or securing everyone’s safety with a protective spell is not nearly as grandiose and worthy of praise as running at your foe and smashing their face with a hammer.]_

Sarcasm didn’t translate well to sign, but she had her suspicion none the less.

 _[I never got my chance. Then during the months I’ve spent… away from Asgard I had better things to worry about than grooming. And I realized I don’t have to follow Aesir rules if I’m no longer… one.]_ He let out a sigh. _[Also, the Jotnar don’t have hair… ]_

“Is that, like, in the anatomy, or they just all shave their heads?”

Loki’s expression turned the familiar kind of pensive for a moment. _[I don’t know,]_ he admitted. _[I’d assume the latter if I were to judge by my appearance, but that may be the spell’s work. I feel like it’s what makes me… me.]_ He rested his arm over his eyes again.

Of course, the answer couldn’t be just an easy “I like it” or “space chicks dig it”, that would be too simple. Where Loki was concerned, there was some dark, heartbreaking secret at the bottom of every subject, even something as inconsequential as hairstyle, it seemed. If it was anyone but Loki, she would suspect they were trying to play her for pity, but with him it made no sense. Not only it didn’t change anything in their relation, but also he obviously hated being on the receiving end of any sort of sympathy. No, he just needed it _out_.

She sat down next to him and nudged his ribs with her elbow. “There’s more than makes you you than just your appearance,” she said. “I hope you know that.”

He breathed out an evasive huff.

“But – and I’m not sure if me saying it will make it better or worse – you do sell the look pretty damn well.”

_[Are you trying to appease me with compliments?]_

“Depends entirely on whether it is working or not.”

The sigh she got for that was even more drawn out than the usual.

\---

 _[You want my help?]_ he asked as she settled down for the evening session of meditation.

“No, I’ll try on my own this time,” she said. “You said I need to be able to do it on demand. And I think I understand better what I’m supposed to do now.”

_[Call me if you change your mind.]_

“What are you going to do?”

_[I saw another fish in the water when you were cleaning up, so likely there’s more. I’ll try catching some.]_

“Thanks.”

He shrugged. _[I have nothing else to do.]_

“Sure,” she said then watched him walk away towards the waterline.

\---

It was much like the last time, only now she had to imagine the anchor points too. It wasn’t that much of a leap to make though and soon she found herself tumbling down the dark abyss again.

The cavern was just as silent and peaceful as she remembered. She lay down on her back, trained her eyes on the dark void above and smiled to herself.

She did it. Now, on to the next step.

\---

“Are you proud of my progress, master?”

_[Don’t call me that.]_

“Why? Aren’t you my master, just like I am your student?”

He shook his head and made an exasperated face. _[That word has more than one meaning.]_

“So?” she asked, then frowned. “Wait, is that the slavery thing again?”

_[Not exactly.]_

_That’s a relief at least._ “Then what is it?”

 _[It brings back memories I would rather like not focus on right now. So I’d appreciate if you bent to my wish this one time and stopped calling me that.]_ He schooled his expression to be neutral, but there was anger lurking just below the surface.

She sighed. “Can I call you ‘Sensei’ then?”

_[I don’t know what that means.]_

“It’s a Japanese word for ‘master’,” she admitted, “but more in the meaning of ‘a teacher’, or one’s honored elder.”

_[Now we are bringing up age into the discussion? I’m probably younger than you if we count our ages proportionally to our respective lifespans anyway.]_

“This is the worst argument I’ve seen you say, well, ever,” she said with a playful smile. “You must be losing your touch.”

_[It is not my fault your company is so unstimulating my brain is melting from boredom and leaking from my ears.]_

“Ugh, low blow. Besides, you’re not interested in my tales, so what do you expect me to do? Teach you calculus? Recite entire Shakespeare’s bibliography from memory? Sing you an opera? I’m just a girl from Earth who used to be a spy who will die on an alien moon without ever meeting her friends again. There. End of story.” She finished signing and folded her arms on her chest then took a couple of deep breaths, counting down from ten. It’s been a while since he managed to get on her nerves so much. Maybe it’s not him who is losing the touch.

 _[I never said I’m not interested in your stories,]_ he said after a pause.

“I’m pretty sure you did.”

He shook his head. _[I told you I’m irritated when I can’t respond. That’s not the same thing.]_

“Loki, listen. I get it. You’re an ancient mage from outer space. You’re a prince from a golden palace on a magical floating rock. You were a king, you’ve travelled to countless worlds, seen things I can’t even begin to imagine. You have at least a dozen human lifetimes’ worth of memories in your head, of which, I sincerely hope, not all are as terrible as the ones you told me about. What could I possibly be able to say to you that you haven’t heard already, a million times over?”

_[I don’t know. And I never will, unless you do.]_

She blinked. He was serious about it. “I’m not used to speaking a lot. Especially about myself.”

_[Neither was I, until I found someone who is good at listening.]_

She felt her cheeks burning up. This must be how girls felt in all those teen movies. She wouldn’t know, she was already a trained assassin by the time she turned fifteen. “That’s probably the nicest thing someone said to me in quite some time,” she whispered. “Thank you. And I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have assumed…” she paused and ran her hand through her hair. It felt weird, but she would get used to it soon enough. “I promise I’ll try to be more open. And if you have questions, I’ll answer them, the best I can, so feel free to ask.”

Loki inclined his head in acknowledgement. He wasn’t angry anymore and, she realized, neither was she. _[Actually, since you’ve completed the first stage of training, there’re might be a place for us to talk.]_

“What do you mean?”

_[Dream-walking is the simplest form of magic. Manipulating physical world requires higher concentration and a level of control unattainable for a novice, but minds are feeble, volatile things, liable to influence when unprotected. Every thinking being builds mental defenses around themselves, consciously or not, but they waver when we sleep, become loosened and easier to penetrate, making it easy to access. That’s what you’ll be trying to do.]_

“You want me to hack your brain?!”

 _[Not… hack,]_ he rolled his eyes at the word, _[I’m going to lower my defenses and let you in.]_

“Can you do that? Without your powers, I mean?”

_[I told you, focusing does not require magic. It won’t be me accessing my powers, but you.]_

“And you’re fine with me just browsing through your brain? Why?”

 _[So you can practice. I had… someone do that for me when I was learning as well. That’s standard procedure. Once you get your sense on how that works, we can proceed with harder challenges. Besides, I think I’ve kept enough of my wits to stop a fledgling like you from peeking where they shouldn’t.]_ There was a hint of a smile in his laughter lines.

“Do I need to learn some secret words of power first?”

_[Incantations are just shortcuts. Sets of instructions that you burn into your brain, for convenience. Like a computer program you can execute with one command. It makes the operation easier, but you only need the framework for it to work if you can use the code.]_

She raised an eyebrow. That wasn’t a parallel she would ever expect Loki to use.

 _[Humans are not the only race of the universe who rely on technology,]_ he explained. _[Even Aesir craftsmen use it sometimes, for creations that don’t require a more subtle touch of magic. And there are others, like the Kree, who depend on it entirely. And I’ve been around.]_

“It’s just weird to witness you go from magic and spells to coding within one sentence. Stark would have a fit.”

_[Thor would have you know they are one and the same, but my dear not-brother is also a dolt who does not understand the intricacies of the universe, so both are just as much of a mystery to him.]_

“I got that gist, yeah,” she laughed.

_[But he is not wrong on one accord. Mastering science and magic both requires you to understand the world around you, to push your boundaries and experience the unknown. With magic you just don’t stop at the material evidence.]_

“So what about that interstellar bridge thing? Foster claims she studied it and that the physics behind it are strong and we… I mean, humans, can build their own, sooner or later.”

_[Some things can be both at the same time. The Bifrost creates a wormhole, which is a physical phenomenon, but channels the universal energy to rip it through space. If you can find a source powerful enough to do that without tapping to the energies of the cosmos, it might be doable. There are Nova ships that can travel by warping the fabric of reality around them, and they are based on the material world powers entirely. You can tap to those sources as well, if you know how, and use it for magic. They are different fields of expertise, but not entirely separate.]_

“I get it… I think. The natural and the supernatural, coexisting in one world, making up the different parts of it.”

Loki nodded. _[The ‘supernatural’ term is a sign of ignorance though. Magic is just as much a part of nature as gravity or electromagnetism or nuclear forces. You don’t need to see gravity to know it’s there. It’s the same with magic.]_

“That’s… poetic, in a sense.”

_[It’s a basic principle of the universe, there’s nothing poetic about it.]_

_Of course_. “Okay, so what do I do? With that whole sleepwalking thingy, I mean.”

 _[You’ll need physical contact. It’s not necessary when you’re more experienced, but crucial if you’re just learning. You’ll place your hands…]_ he edged closer, until their knees touched. _[Like this,]_ he said and put his hands on her temples for a brief moment.

She reached out and mimicked his gesture. “Like that?”

_[Yes.]_

“Then what?”

_[Give me a moment to prepare and then focus, like the first time I helped you to anchor yourself at the beach, only using your fingers as your ties, not mine. Think about where you want to go. And don’t worry when you don’t get it the first time. It takes practice.]_

“Okay.”

_[Are you ready?]_

“As ready as I can be.”

He nodded slightly, then let his hands fall to his knees, took in a deep breath and closed his eyes. She watched him, her hands still firmly set on his temples, her eyes tracing the deep lines of bruises the muzzle notched into his skin. How painful was it to just have it on all this time, even without the spell acting up? It was clinging to him via magic, making it fit so tightly was just another unnecessary layer of barbarity, which seemed like Loki’s father modus operandi at that point.

Loki’s breathing evened out, the tension drawing off from his face and stance and he slumped, leaning into her touch a bit more. Her arms were starting to go numb from being up for so long. They needed to rethink the positioning in the future. No matter, she could deal with it for now. It’s not like it was going to work right away, even Loki has said it.

She closed her eyes and focused on the coolness under her fingers then let her thoughts wander astray, until they went out, one by one and only the bright blue light at her fingertips remained. She fell.

\---

A biting chill was the first thing she noticed. Then the wind, belligerent and piercing. She opened her eyes and gasped. The world around her was almost pure white. A huge, open plain, with a sky of low, rolling clouds above. The ground was covered with snow, there were snowflakes slowly drifting in the air, despite the wind. A ragged line of icy glaciers stuck out of the mists behind the plain’s edge, far in the distance.

She whipped around.

Loki sat on the ground a couple dozen feet from her, facing away.

She started slowly, then ran, the thin layer of snowdrift scrunching under her boots. The wind slashed at her and twisted into her hair and clothes and the snowflakes stuck to and melted away on her skin.

She came to a sliding stop a few steps away from him. The ground below the layer of snow was covered with ice. “Hi,” she said tentatively, and circled around him, low on her feet.

Loki turned. He was wearing a high-collared, olive green tunic with intricate silver embroidery around his neck and his hair was slicked back, like he used to keep it when they first met. “Hello,” he said and smiled, a wide, genuine grin, teeth and all. She felt prickling in her eyes. So that was how his voice sounded like. “You made it.”

“So it seems,” she rasped, fighting the tightness behind her sternum.

“Care to join me?” he said, waving his hand at the ground next to him. “The ice is not that cold if you don’t think about it.”

She sat down, mimicking his pose, with her legs folded. She couldn’t tear her eyes away from his face. Without the muzzle and with the lines undisturbed by injuries, constant tension and weeks of starvation he looked different. Healthier, obviously. Younger. Whole.

He noticed her stare, crooked his head and raised an eyebrow, “Do I have something in my teeth?”

She chuckled. “No. You look… good.”

“I wonder why.”

“It’s not what…”

“I know.”

They sat in silence for a while.

“So, this is your inner place, huh. You weren’t joking about the cold.”

“You get used to it.”

“Do you show it to every new girl you meet? Cause, let me tell you, it leaves an impression,” she said lightly and looked at the horizon. The landscape was stark and harsh and uninviting, but otherworldly beautiful and serene at the same time.

“No,” he said, and she could swear she heard a note of sadness in his voice. “Only you.”

“You mean that I am…”

“The only person in the entire universe who ever saw it, yes.”

She blinked and looked at him again. He met her gaze, a small smile pushing the corners of his lips up. She reached to touch his face but stopped halfway through the motion. “May I?”

“Oh, you ask for permissions now?” he said, and his smile widened. His lower teeth were a bit uneven, she realized, with canines sitting at a slight angle and lower than the rest, but it only made him look all the more… real.

She hesitated with her hand still up in the air.

“Go on. I understand the urge,” he said and leaned in closer, his face now inches away.

She traced the smooth outline of his jaw and gently drew her fingers across his chin. His eyelids fell and she admired how long his eyelashes were. She never noticed before. She ran her thumb over the thin line of his lips and his nostrils flared.

Then she kissed him.

He pulled away immediately and his eyes snapped open. He glared at her, his brows furrowed, surprise mixed with confusion and something else she couldn’t quite put a finger on painted on his face.

“I… I’m sorry,” she stuttered, “I didn’t mean to…”

“No, that’s…” he stopped, and his eyes went wide. A violent cough shook his frame, then another, and when he wiped his mouth there was blood on his hand. Then there was blood dripping from his nose too and his face twisted in pain.

“What’s happening?!”

“We have to go,” he gritted through his bared, bloodied teeth. Another spasm ran through him, so violent it ripped a scream out of his throat and made his spine arch. He squeezed is eyes shut and tears ran down his cheeks.

The world crumbled and dissolved into darkness.

\---

She blinked, disoriented, trying to regain her bearing as her head throbbed dully and her vision swam from the sudden change. She looked up. Her head was resting on Loki’s lap and he was doubled over above her, his hands clutching his face.

She untangled herself and sat upright, then put her hand on his arm. “Are you all right?”

It was a stupid question; it was obvious that he wasn’t, but he still nodded. He didn’t straighten up or take his hands off his face though. She rubbed his shoulder in a gesture of comfort, unsure what else to do.

“I’m sorry,” she said again. She was responsible for that, there was no other explanation. Everything was fine until she decided to kiss him, like a complete moron without an inch of self-control. It was blatant, before and even more now, that he wasn’t interested, not like that. But she still had to indulge herself and… distressed him enough to break their connection and now Loki was paying the price.

He dragged himself up in the end and peeled hands away from his face and she stared, mortified. Blood has seeped from his nose and from behind the muzzle and the streaks the tears of pain left on his cheeks has not yet fully dried.

 _[It wasn’t your fault,]_ he said, slowly.

“No? It seemed like it was.”

He shook his head. _[We just found another stipulation in the rules of the spell. I can’t have magic used on me either, or else I get punished. It only took so long before it fired because what you did was a low-level trick that required barely any energy, making it harder to detect.]_

“But… why?”

 _[Perhaps to prevent me from seeking assistance of another magic user, if I ever found somebody willing to help me?]_ he said with a deep sigh and pulled his knees to his chest. _[Odin thought of everything to truly leave me out of options.]_

“That’s so not fair. What if someone used magic on you against your will? You’d have no way to protect yourself from that, right?”

_[I don’t think Odin would care much about that.]_

“For once I’m glad I grew up without parents,” she said, “if that’s a plausible alternative.”

_[I don’t think Odin would care much about some mortal’s opinion either.]_

“I don’t give a fuck about what he thinks as well, so that makes us even.”

Loki chuckled but there was little humor in it.

“Come on, let’s get you cleaned up.” She got up, waved somewhere towards the direction of the sea then extended her arm to him. “Blood is hard to wash off when it dries.”

 _[I know,]_ Loki said, grabbed her hand and scrambled to his feet.

\---

“I’m sorry,” she said, yet again. It felt like a mantra by now, but she still needed to say it. She needed to clear the situation before it got out of control, like those things tend to do.

_[About what this time?]_

“About what happened in your mind.” It sounded strange just to say it. At least now she understood why Loki called it “dreamwalking”. It seemed a lot like a dream, the one that feels completely realistic and logical when it’s going and can be identified as a figment of imagination only after waking up.

_[I thought we discussed it. It wasn’t anything you did.]_

“I’m not talking about the spell. I’m talking about kissing you. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t. I stepped over a line that I shouldn’t have crossed.”

Loki shrugged. _[I don’t mind.]_

“Well, that’s a relief,” she said, but couldn’t help the pinch of sarcasm that sneaked into the line. _I don’t mind? Seriously, what kind of response is that?_

 _[It was… nice,]_ he added.

“Nice,” she echoed. “Okay. Are you twelve by any chance?”

_[I don’t know what else you want me to say.]_

“I don’t know either.”

_[Why did you kiss me then?]_

She looked at him. “I wanted to know how it would feel like, I think. I wasn’t really planning to. You were close and it just… happened.”

_[And how did it feel like?]_

She closed her eyes. When she thought about it, she could still feel soft tingling where her lips touched his, the tightness in her chest and the fluttery warmth in her stomach. And it did not even happen in reality. “Nice.” _I suppose I’m twelve as well_.

He sighed.

She couldn’t leave it like that, there could be no thing left unsaid. Her stupidity couldn’t be allowed to ruin what they had. It was too important. They were two reasonable adults, they could talk this though. “I did not think this through. I guess I’m just not used to men not being attracted to me. I should have figured you’re not into my sort of people. I can usually tell, but it seems my instincts are not that infallible.”

_[Your sort of people?]_

“I don’t know. Redheads? White chicks? Mouthy ex-assassins? Women?”

He glared at her; his expression puzzled.

“It is fine, you know. I mean, I have no idea how it is where you’re from, seeing Asgard can be backwards as fuck in some respects, but on Earth it’s considered normal. By most, at least. And the rest is just… uninformed. And benign, mostly.”

 _[I don’t think I’m into any sort of people,]_ he said and looked away.

“Uhm, okay…”

 _[It’s just another piece of me that’s broken. Another flaw that makes me defective,]_ he gestured, slowly, without looking at her. _[Or perhaps I was just surrounded by the wrong species the whole time.]_

 _Oh. Right. “_ Take that, social theory of attraction.”

He disregarded her comment. The words must not mean a lot on their own. _[I made a promise to not lie to you and I intend to keep it. So, you see, I can’t give you what you want. Unless you just crave a release, then I could be of service. I was told I’m quite skilled. Maybe I would even find some pleasure in it.]_

“No, that’s not… what I was going for. I mean, if you want to, sure, if that would work for you.” If Loki wanted a casual shag without strings of commitment attached, just to release some tension, she could do it with a smile on her face. She slept with lesser men, for lesser reasons.

Loki shook his head. _[No. I just don’t… need it. I never did. I tried to make myself, convince myself it’s something I want, but I couldn’t, just like I couldn’t understand why so many people allowed such trivial, basic pursuits to rule their lives. Maybe it’s in my heritage or maybe Odin’s magic broke that part of me. I’ll never know.]_

She watched him speak with wide eyes.

_[It’s not important, on most of days. But it gets… lonely, sometimes. It’s in the nature for people to form the strongest bonds based on sexual acts, no matter what kind of species they come from. But I thought that maybe one day there would be… someone, who can appreciate companionship without wanting more, without demanding things I couldn’t sincerely offer. Just another false hope I shouldn’t have allowed myself to cultivate.]_

A hysterical laughter slowly welled up in her chest, until she couldn’t hold it anymore. It burst out and she doubled over, clutching her sides.

 _[I see you find it just as amusing as some of my former… friends,]_ he said after she managed to control the outburst somewhat, his face stern and more than slightly offended.

“No, it’s not like that,” she said and wiped her eyes. “I just can’t believe you’re an ace.”

_[A what?]_

“An ace. That’s short for ‘asexual’, the term for someone who doesn’t experience sexual attraction. Or needs. Or both.”

_[I suppose that’s… accurate. Mortals’ need to put a name and definition to everything can be useful sometimes. But I still don’t understand why it’s so hilarious.]_

“Because, well, so am I, and don’t make me tell you the odds of that.”

\---

“I don’t know if I was born this way, of if it’s just something I developed as a defense mechanism during my training, as my therapists tend to say. I don’t think it changes all that much, either way. I am who I am and there’s no point in denying it. For a while I fought it, thinking that maybe counseling would help, make me… more normal, more like other people. And it kind of did, to a point. But it was never genuine, just another layer of acquired instincts and conditioned reactions. So I let it go.

“The shrinks were right in one aspect though. It gets easier when I put the blame on someone else. So, yeah, maybe it is because of what I went through in the Red Room. That’s the… institution where I grew up. They took me away from my home when I was six and made me into… I don’t even know what, anymore. A blank slate, ready to be filled with anything they needed, to play any role required of me, to follow orders unconditionally, without second thoughts, without remorse. 

“They taught us to kill first. Expertly and without hesitation. But that was our secondary purpose. It was a school for girls after all and the training was very specialized to our particular set of advantages. They taught us how to use our bodies to manipulate, to coerce, to force men – and women – into doing and saying things they wouldn’t otherwise. Our physiques were to be honed and wielded, as weapons, sharp and deadly.

“Then, when my training ended and my service begun, my new masters made me use it, over, and over, and over. I’ve killed more people than I can even count. I’ve slept with even more. Sometimes, if I was lucky, I could draw some physical fulfillment from those encounters, just as you said, but that somehow made it even worse in the long run. Turning the act into something… tainted, that felt more like an obligation at best and a torment at worst. And even the pleasure was fleeting, leaving an empty, unsatisfied feeling behind, a itch that I couldn’t scratch, a yearning for something I could never name. The spark was never there. After Clint saved me, after he became a friend, I realized I felt more satisfied and intimate sharing a handshake with him than I ever did having sex with anyone.”

_[So, you and Barton…]_

“We have… had an arrangement, yes. It was going on since before he met Laura. He was seeing other people, just for the physical aspect of things, and I was fine with it, because I knew I could only offer him half of what he needed. But then it changed when they started dating and it became serious. He never hid what we had from her and she agreed. Allowed for _us_ to carry on. I became friends with her. With their kids too, later. Part of the family, in a way. She understood me to some degree and understood why Clint wanted this, even if she couldn’t really grasp what it is like or saw it as _true._ Because it can’t be love if you’re not bonking, right? For a time, it was good. Not the same though. Clint drew… lines, things he could do with me and the ones he reserved for Laura. The list grew longer, and longer. But I stuck around, because I cared about Clint. I still care about him. And I knew I will never find someone… who would be there for me… exclusively.”

She stopped and took in a long breath through her teeth, trying to stop the tears threatening their way out. It shouldn’t be that hard. She made peace with that side of her existence, years ago. Settled on the next best thing and tried to live her life to the fullest, surrounded with people she cared about, with her makeshift family, the first she ever had. But saying it out loud, for the first time in a long while, made the wound raw again, reminding her of the things she could never have. A real family. Kids. Growing old together.

And Loki had no substitution, no “next best thing”. No one to confine in without fear of ridicule, no one to support him. Only a pile of years and years of loneliness, that just kept on growing, with contempt and abuse and stretches of complete isolation sprinkled over. 

They _were_ alike, in more aspects than just this one. And she felt that before, subconsciously, no matter how much she tried to deny it. Maybe, in some alternative timeline, where they met under different circumstances, where their lives weren’t entangled in all this mess and doomed because of it, they somehow made it work, together.

She looked up and met Loki’s forlorn, worried gaze, and, just for this moment, she chose to believe he felt that too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yep, I made one of the most overly sexualized by the fandom characters into an ace and I'm not even sorry. I mean, it makes helluva lot of sense, in my head. 
> 
> Natasha's explanation, while not technically incorrect, is brief and thus skipping a lot of the spectrum of asexuality, I'm trying to make it right later on by showing, not telling.


	21. Sticks and stones

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Loki is being the master of deduction, truly.

“It’s beautiful,” she said.

Loki shifted and huffed next to her, but it was too dark to see either his expression or his hands to know what that meant. The midday sun was completely hidden behind the moon planet, only the faint halo of its wispy atmosphere showed up on the inky sky, highlighted by the hidden star.

They’ve seen a couple of eclipses, but it was a first complete one and it was breathtaking, in no way comparable to the eclipses she saw on Earth.

A sight to die for, some could call it.

Well, they might just as well be in the process of exactly that.

\---

_[Are you ready for another go?]_

They’ve been walking since the eclipse ended and the sun was setting now, so it was the high time to search for a good spot to camp for the night.

“Another go at what?”

_[Dream-walking?]_

“Are you mad? Of course not.”

_[Why?]_

“Why are you even asking me this? I’m not going to hurt you on purpose, ever again.”

_[If we time…]_

“No. How do you even want to time something in a place where the concept of time doesn’t exist? And there’s no guarantee it won’t happen sooner.”

_[Maybe it won’t.]_

“And maybe it will.” She raised her voice. “I’m not going to risk it!”

_[You need practice.]_

“We will find another way.”

_[This is the easiest one.]_

“And the one that hurts you, too. You’re smart, you’ll figure something out. Something _else_.”

_[There are more important things than my already rather questionable wellbeing, you should realize it by now. And I have no use for your misplaced sentiment.]_

“Oh, for fuck’s sake. Fine, if you can’t accept it for what it is, take it like this: _I_ hate to see you in pain and _I_ would like to avoid it at all costs. Now drop the stupid idea and think up another way for me to practice, so _I_ wouldn’t have to.”

Loki hissed in irritation but folded his arms on his chest and didn’t argue anymore so she was willing to call it a success.

\---

_[If you don’t want to go the easy way, you will have to deal with the next step on your own.]_

“Okay.”

_[Are you sure?]_

“I just told you. Now bring it on.”

_[You will have to find your core.]_

“My… core.”

_[Yes. The place in your mind where all the energies converge. The ones in your body and the ones from the outside that affect you.]_

“Right. And how do I do that?”

_[I don’t know. It works differently for everyone. But visualizing usually helps.]_

“Visualizing?”

_[Imagining.]_

“I know what the word means, thank you. I’m more curious about _how_.”

_[You go into your head, focus and search for it.]_

“Okay,” she said. It cleared absolutely nothing.

_[Alternatively, you can try dream-walking again, getting used to the motions. Using your power, even for simple tricks, will make it a lot easier to find and make a switch from instinctive to deliberate manipulation.]_

“No. I got this.”

 _[I’ll leave you to it then,]_ he said and marched away.

He was still angry at her, but she wasn’t going to yield, not on this one. She knew by now he wasn’t doing it on purpose, but it was clear he unconsciously kept on maneuvering himself into situations like those, and, if not that, at least jumped at every opportunity, of which there were too many and they just kept on piling up. Whether it was because he felt he could prove his strength by enduring or he believed, deep down, he deserved it, she couldn’t tell. She feared it was both.

And he knew that, to some degree at least. He could see the effects it had on people who wanted to see him harmed. It took but a little sadistic streak to squirm in enjoinment at the sight of Loki, gritting his teeth and keeping his head up with unwavering adamance, when the fate rained lashes on his back. Time, after time, after time. For centuries.

If only she could find an angle, an approach, a way to shake him out of that mindset, explain to him that he didn’t have anything to prove nor he deserved every bad thing that ever happened to him, in a way he would accept. That there might still be light at the end of the tunnel.

She pressed her thumbs to her eyes. _One step at the time, Natasha._

\---

“Visualizing, my ass,” she uttered at the void and rolled to her side with a groan.

She’s been trying for hours. Or five minutes, it was hard to tell.

She started with the obvious; the huge arc reactor that ran Stark’s facilities, because it was the first thing that came to her mind when she thought about the word “core”. She went on to a shiny obelisk, a phoenix, a knife and an apple. Then she tried something more personal. The ugly snow globe from Albuquerque Clint brought her, with a “worst souvenir ever” written with a sharpie at the bottom. The pen she signed her contract with SHIELD with that she sneaked out of the room as a keepsake, only to find a gps tracker in it a couple of days later. “The 1997 New York Donut Shop Guide”, signed with a single E and a date. The bullet that Clint pulled out of her shoulder in a sewer in Budapest, the one that missed her heart by just an inch. Then an apple again, just to be sure. Apples had cores, right?

But nothing. 

Maybe that’s not what Loki meant. Maybe it was not any particular object, but a concept. Yeah, that sounded like something Loki would say, to the point she couldn’t understand what exactly it meant.

She dragged her fingertips on the surface of the floor, watching the ripples interfere and drift to fade in the distance. It was a mesmerizing; the waves reflected light like they should, but the floor remained perfectly flat. Where did her brain even get that idea? It wasn’t like anything she ever saw, but her subconsciousness somehow generated it without her active participation anyway.

Was it the same with the core? Was it already existing somewhere in her mind, it’s form already created and she just needed to discover it? Or maybe it wasn’t about the form at all?

Well, trying to use it would be probably the easiest, but how what she supposed to do that?

Did Loki really need to be that cryptic? Was it something he considered so much of a general knowledge he didn’t even think it’s worth mentioning? Or was he just getting back at her? No, that didn’t seem like him. Well, not that he wouldn’t find a way to get a revenge on her eventually, patiently waiting for the best moment, but not like that. This was too important.

No, he – more likely than not – really didn’t know how it would work for her. He said that every mind had its own method, that it takes years to learn the simplest spells, to find that spark and be able to use it. How could she expect to achieve the same in just weeks?

She hoped that having Loki as her teacher, with all his wit and knowledge, would ease her into it, allow her to skip ahead, take a shortcut to the finish line so she could get there in time. But here she was, just past the starting point, encountering her first obstacle already. One he couldn’t help her with if she was relentless on holding her ground.

Maybe she should listen to him after all and get her priorities straight. Loki knew all too damn well it would all be futile if they found no way out of here. Some pain might be a reasonable price to pay, if the alternative was certain death. And the clock was ticking. She did what must be done and was proud of it, considered it the major feature of her character. Why did she falter now?

Not now. With Loki in general. The memory flashed before her eyes. Of his hand wrapped around her throat and her just lying there, unable to act. Unwilling to. She squeezed her eyes shut. It didn’t help, if anything, it made the memory even more vivid.

She got it all backwards. She wasn’t looking at the bigger picture. He did not deserve to be hurt, but neither he deserved dying a slow, agonizing death away from…

Well, what, exactly?

He would laugh if she said “home”. People who cared about him? Oh, he would laugh at that too, even harder. Thor, who locked the fucking muzzle on him in the first place? His father, who ordered it? His mother, who – at best – just stood aside and let it happen?

That’s why he trusted Natasha, wasn’t it? Why he even talked to her. He needed someone to care enough to ask and it happened to be her. There was no one else and now she was failing him too.

She groaned in frustration. This was all so messed up. There was no good call here. She either actively participated in the sick torture designed by Odin, buying them a chance, even if a very slight one, or stood by and did nothing, dooming them both.

She curled up, pulling her knees up and burying her face between her arms.

There was a cold touch on her temples and she startled. It’s been a while since Loki reached out to her when she was in her head. Did something happen? She focused on the link and the cavern dispersed.

\---

The first thing she noticed was how stiff her muscles felt. Then the light. It was dawning. And it wasn’t the planet-moon rising on the sky, it was the sun, even if it was just setting when she started.

“Time flies when you’re having fun,” she joked. Her voice was rough and her throat dry. “Something’s wrong?”

_[I don’t know. You were out for a long time. I was starting to…]_

_Aww._ “I just lost the track of time,” she said and giggled, because how could she, really? “It’s fine.”

Loki nodded, retreated to where he was presumably sitting before and picked up the knife and a long stick he was apparently in the middle of sharpening the end of then got on with the work.

“What’s that?”

He let out an annoyed sigh, put the items down again and signed. _[How does it look like?]_

“A pointy stick?”

_[Congratulations, your eyes still work. Good job.]_

“What is it for?”

 _[Fishing,]_ he said and indicated the two bundles wrapped in leaves on a rock by the fire. _[I found some more, they swim closer to the shore just before sunrise.]_

“You didn’t need a stick for that before. Neither you needed it now, apparently. So, what exactly is it for?”

_[You need to learn to do it by yourself and it will be easier with a spear.]_

“Why do I need to learn? I’ve got you for that.”

His face turned hard and he glowered at her with slanted, angry eyes, until she couldn’t hold his gaze any longer and dropped her head. _Right._

“We need to talk,” she said when she saw him reaching for the knife again in her peripheral vision. “I owe you an apology. Well, probably more than one at this point, but… yeah. You were right. I need to focus on what’s important.” She bit her lower lip and shot him a cautious glance.

_[Go on.]_

“Don’t get me wrong, I still hate the thought of you getting hurt. A lot. And I would do anything to avoid it. But I’m lost and I don’t know what I’m doing and how to proceed, hell, how to even start. I’ll never get there in time without your help. And abandoning the quest and your only hope along with it shouldn’t be my decision to make, because it is your life hanging on that line, not mine. So yeah, if you think that dream-walking again is the most dependable way for me to learn and maybe get those damned powers to work before it’s too late, I’m going to do it, even if I’m going to hate every minute of it. If your offer still stands, that’s it.”

_[It does.]_

“Fine, then let’s do it,” she said.

_[Not now.]_

“Why?”

_[You’re drained.]_

“I’ve just slept for like twenty plus hours or something!”

_[Your body did, but your mind did not. And it’s your mind that you need to use.]_

“Okay. So, what’s the plan?”

_[Eat, drink some water, clean up and we can head on. Walking will help you unwind. We can try again the next time we camp.]_

“Aye, captain,” she said, and Loki crooked his neck and looked up at the sky in overdone exasperation.

\---

“I can carry it, you know,” she said when they were walking again.

_[I’m fine.]_

“I know you are, but I’m still offering. So, you know, you can have both your hands free?”

 _[I’m fine,]_ he repeated with an expression that suggested there was no point in further arguing.

“Okay, suit yourself. And let me know if you change your mind.”

Why was he so stubborn about it? It was just a piece of wood and he had no issues with having her carry the water container (and then another one, too). Hell, he could probably find a different stick and sharpen it in no time when he needed it again, which made the point of carrying it moot twice over.

She slowed down a bit, just for a step or two, letting him walk past and staying a step behind. Then she observed.

It took her a moment to notice. He was careful to not be obvious about it, but he was using the stick as a crutch, leaning on it as he walked, slightly but discernibly. There was a minute uncertainty in his stride too.

She squeezed her eyes shut and futilely tried to keep the conclusion from blooming in her mind.

She couldn’t expect that he was going to be fine forever, she knew that, but knowing was different that seeing it happen, right before her eyes. And it was going to get worse while they were still nowhere close to cracking the mystery, hell, even to finding if there’s anything to crack at all. She understood all that better why he was so insistent before. He knew he is running out of time.

The sense of urgency tightened her chest and fell on her shoulders like a physical burden, more palpable than it was ever before. But it also filled her with grim resolution, bordering confidence. She had a mission and she was going to fulfill it. There was just no other option.

\---

By noon they reached another rock formation, jutting out from the forests and cutting into the sea, similar to the peninsula before, even if a lot smaller. There was another cave there too, its entrance half hidden behind the brushes at the foot of the bluff, a bit further inland. A thin rivulet was running away from its mouth and towards the sea.

“Let’s check it out,” she said, pushed the bushes aside and kept them so Loki could pass as well. “I wonder how far down it goes.”

 _[Sure,]_ he said, without much conviction.

They walked inside. The floor was covered with small pebbles, polished smooth by water, similar to that crevice from day one, but, unlike that, this one grew too narrow to progress just after a few dozen feet, the small stream disappearing inside a crack in the rock face, maybe a foot wide.

“Well, that’s disappointing,” she complained with a pout. “On the other hand, I should be grateful it doesn’t go further than that. I wouldn’t know peace before I got to the bottom of it. Literally.”

Loki shrugged. He wasn’t in a talkative mood, his thoughts probably clouded by the same realization that screamed at her from the deep end of her brain since the morning. How long was it going on before she noticed? How long he hoped to keep it a secret? She could ask and he would have no option but to tell her. She wouldn’t. Acknowledging it would do no good, it was not like any of them didn’t know what it meant.

 _[At least we won’t get rained on this time,]_ Loki said when they went back to the entrance and it got bright enough for her to see what he was saying again.

She hummed in agreement. There were dark clouds gathering at the horizon and it looked like another rainy afternoon was upon them and she too was going to appreciate not having to shiver under the questionable cover of the trees this time.

Loki leaned against the wall and slid down into a sitting position with a barely perceptible sigh of relief. He reached for the water container and propped it against his knee.

She averted her gaze, knowing all too well how humiliating he found the process of dripping the water between the plates of the muzzle and sucking it in through the slits. He avoided doing it when she was around and she couldn’t blame him, not at all. She hated to watch too, for a different reason whatsoever.

“I’m not sitting on the ground,” she announced. “Can I borrow your knife?”

 _[It is your knife,]_ he said and reached behind his belt, pulling it forth and handing it to her.

“I gave it to you, remember?”

_[Borrowed.]_

“Hey, no take-backsies!”

_[You’ll need it back, sooner or later.]_

_So, it is that bad, huh?_ “Maybe not,” she said and turned on her heel to leave.

\---

“Here.”

She dropped the sizeable bundle of twigs, leaves and dry grass if front of Loki.

_[I didn’t know humans are nesting.]_

“We do not but I’m also not going to sit for hours on bare stones. We mortals are soft like that. I brought some for you too, so you wouldn’t smoosh your pretty face if you faint.”

_[It’s the second time you called me that and it’s even less funny this time.]_

“Only second? I thought it was more than that. I need to up my game.”

He glared at her.

“Can’t you take a compliment at the face value?”

_[Only when it’s deserved.]_

“Are you questioning my taste? That’s a low blow, even for you.”

_[That’s not…]_

She smiled. “I know. I’m just teasing, that’s all. I do that when I’m nervous. Your conversation partner is a lot less likely to notice your anxiety if you keep him second-guessing everything you say. That’s manipulation tactics one-oh-one and a habit that’s hard to turn off. Sorry.”

_[Why are you nervous?]_

“Oh, no idea. I’m only going to invade your head which may or may not end with you writhing in pain again.”

_[I can handle it.]_

“For the umpteenth time: I know. That’s not the point.”

_[How many times do we have to go over this?]_

“We are not _going over this_. I’m not arguing. You asked me why I’m nervous and I told you, end of story. It is what it is, we’ve made a decision and I’m going to stick to it.”

_[Good.]_

“Good,” she echoed. “Better get ready, I’m energized and determined and I’m going to plunder your brain so hard you won’t know which way is up.”

He took in a sharp breath and looked away. _[I’m not going to fight you this time either.]_

“That was just a metaphor. And a shitty one at that, apparently.”

He eyed the pile of greenery in front of him for a moment, then grabbed a bunch, spread it on the ground to his side and scooted over to sit on it. She smiled knowingly and he rolled his eyes.

\---

She got into Loki’s mind even quicker than before, not sure if that was because she was getting better at it or just knew the way already.

Loki met her half-way this time.

“Good to see you again,” she greeted.

“You literally just saw me.” He flashed a crafty smile, and she felt a tug behind her sternum at the sound of his voice again. “Although I realize why you’d prefer this,” he added with a handwave, directed at his face and turned the smile up a notch.

“You’re the master of deduction, truly.”

He chortled, a quick, cheerful sound that spilled a wave of warmth in her stomach. His cheeks were flushed from the cold. The urge to cup them in her palms was almost too strong to fight. She sat down instead. He followed, sitting across from her.

“How much time do we have?”

His lips pulled into a thin line and he narrowed his eyes. “I don’t have the faintest idea, I’m afraid,” he admitted, “If I could reach my magic, I could stretch this moment into forever, buying us as much of it as we wanted. But as is, we are at my subconsciousness’ whim. It can be fickle. The spell itself and how fast it acts is the second variable.”

“We should go. Get out and try again. I can train that way and we will minimize the risk of triggering it.”

“No. You won’t be able to do it again so quickly, not without building some mental tenacity first. We can dally a little longer.”

“Okay,” she said, not entirely convinced. “Is there anything in particular you want me to do?”

“Yes. You are sustaining the link drawing from your life force right now. And no, you don’t have to worry about draining yourself, it’s not a highly energy consuming magic and it would take days to wear one’s body reserves out,” he added, seeing her wary expression. “Even for a human.”

“Okay, sorry, I just remembered what you said about the dangers of overstrain and I wasn’t sure…”

He shot her a scolding glare. Right, he wouldn’t have her do it if it could put her in danger. “The fact remains that your core is active now because you are using it. You’ve spent a lot of time inside your mind, so I want you to focus and find the difference. The part that you were not aware was there before.”

She nodded and let her eyelids fall close. The silvery fishes of her thoughts swarmed and fluttered in her brain and she let them slow down, run out of energy and go out, one by one, until none remained.

There was still something in the darkness though. Something vibrating, glittering, opalizing, an idea made of stardust and shimmering light that faded each time she tried focusing on it, but then pulsed back alive when she wasn’t looking, like an optical illusion in a children’s book. She reached for it, but it slipped between the cracks only to reemerge when she released her scrutiny.

“I… I think it’s there,” she whispered, “but I don’t know how to reach it.”

“It will come, in time.” Loki’s voice was low and smooth. Soothing. “It is like a muscle you have never used before. Familiarize yourself with how it feels, grow accustomed to its pull, but don’t try to put too much pressure on it, or you’ll strain it.”

“Okay.”

“And open your eyes when you’re ready. I want to show you something,” he said, quietly. There was something thrumming in his tone, some emotion she couldn’t identify turning it rough and frilly at the edges.

She took a deep breath and looked at the jittery light, committing it to her memory. It shifted and changed, like an oil spill on the surface of the water but did not entirely go away when she did. Then she opened her eyes.

Loki’s hands were curled around a ball, made of gray, polished stone and no bigger than a grapefruit. She watched as he ran his slender fingers across its smooth surface, almost caressingly. His face was downcast and his eyes, trained at the sphere, filled with longing.

It looked… incorrect, somehow. Defective, twisted and depraved, its very existence offending the laws of nature. Just looking at it made her squirm with repulsion. She couldn’t understand how he could even bear to touch it, much less with such fondness.

“What’s that?”

“My core,” he said and blinked, but it didn’t get the shine off his eyes.

“Why it’s so… wrong?”

“It wasn’t always like this. It used to be beautiful. Full of life, brimming with energy. But it’s like this now. Withered. Locked away for too long.” His voice wavered. “This is all that’s left.”

“Oh.”

He let the sphere roll off his hands. It fell onto the ice and the ground cracked, the fissure small at first, then reaching further and deeper with a low rumble. It burst open, swallowing the ball and closing over it. The cracks faded, until the surface was whole again.

“Loki!”

He looked up at her. His lips were red with blood.

“It started!”

“I know,” he said. “A while ago.”

“We have to go!”

“Yes,” he murmured and stayed motionless, eyes still on her. “In a moment.”

She groaned, “I’m leaving.” With that, she focused on the link, on severing it, on getting her mind soundly back into reality.

“No, wait…” he started and reached to grab her hand, but it was too late. The clouds billowed angrily, and the ground cracked open yet again, swallowing her whole and she tumbled down, into the dark.

The physical representations stopped existing, both of her and of the world around. The forces affecting her body stopped existing as well, because she had no body anymore, for she was only a thought, lost in the black nothingness, drifting, twisting, turning.

Then it snapped back, all at once.

_Stale, heavy air in the lungs, taken in short gasps between the waves of nausea. Oppressive darkness, blurring the vision and creeping at the edge of every coherent thought. Cold, seeping into the bones and stealing the last memory of warmth away. Blood, dripping from where manacles rubbed the skin off the flesh of wrists, ankles and neck, leaving baren tendons and muscle and nerves unprotected. Chains, keeping the body down in place, pulling it taunt, turning the attempts to jerk away futile. The fingers, long and foreign and wrong, wrong, wrong, drawing over the lines of fresh wounds that overlay older, not yet fully healed injuries and scars, twisting into hair, pulling, exposing the throat. Dark, harsh voice, promising unknown terrors but also a release._

No. _It is a lie, just like before, and the words taste like ash._

_Something hot and pulsing with immense power that sings in the veins is pushed closer, pressing onto the nape of the neck, then trails lower to stop between the shoulder blades. Pain, starting on the contact point then radiating onwards, inwards, outwards, into every direction, white-hot and piercing, all-encompassing, frying nerves and locking muscles in spasms, boiling the thoughts from the brain, tearing the layers of sanity away, simmering and changing. But not stopping._

_Then a scream, impossible to be held back anymore, raw and primal, tearing forth from the coarse throat, vibrating and bouncing off the walls of the cell, until there’s no breath left in the lungs, then slowly dissolving into laugher, grating and tasting of metal and salt. And utterly, perfectly insane._

_And then only the darkness again._

\---

The scream slowly died down on her lips and turned into an animalistic snarl and she thrashed to free her limbs, but couldn’t, strong hands holding her down, pinning her arms to the ground. She kicked, blindly, and got her knees locked down for the trouble, then tried biting, but couldn’t reach anything, no matter how hard she twisted her neck.

Reality came back in bursts, washing away the agony that fired in her nerves, until it faded into a dull afterimage. She stopped fighting and just lay there, panting.

Loki slowly released her arms, got off of her and sat down with a heavy sigh, close by but facing away.

“What…” she tried and coughed. There was blood pooling at the back of her throat and her jaw was sore. She leaned over her shoulder and spit it out, then wiped her mouth with the top of her hand. She felt for damage with her tongue. The blood kept on coming.

Her upper molar was cracked, and a piece of it split off and embedded itself into her gums. She pulled the splinter out.

“Shit,” she rasped and dragged herself up on her elbows. “Can you pass me some water, please?”

Loki twisted around and handed her the water container, uncorking it for her convenience. His face and neck were covered with streaks of blood that he tried to wipe but didn’t quite get off fully and his skin was even more pallid and ashen than the other day, the dark circles under his eyes even more pronounced. There was also a fresh cut above his eyebrow, she probably managed to nick him while throwing the fit. It had to be that.

_Shit._

At least it didn’t look serious, just a scratch that should fade in a couple of days.

She spat the water she’s been slushing in her mouth out then drank a few gulps, trying to douse the fire that burned in her throat. “We are a goddamned mess,” she slurred.

He breathed out a small laugh. _[Indeed.]_

“What was that?”

_[You tried to break the link without preparation. I told you to wait, but you did not listen.]_

“It worked just fine the first time around,” she pointed out.

_[I showed you out then, before severing the connection myself. This time, it was all you, just ripping out.]_

“I had no idea you can’t.”

_[I should have warned you. It’s not that much of a deal usually, should you know what you’re doing. But you did not, and you inadvertently took a stroll through my temporal lobe on your way out. It might not be the best place to play a tourist in.]_

She stared at him, horrified.

She might not know much about anatomy in general and about how brains functioned in particular, but she knew a thing or two. Like the fact that the temporal lobe was the area of the brain where memories were stored.

\---

The rain was pelting the landscape and her clothes were soaked the moment they stepped outside. It was still preferable to sitting in the cave, the darkened interior suddenly seeming too small and suffocating. The sun hasn’t set yet, but it was just a pale haze behind the thick layer of clouds and the world was dressed in shadows. They’d have a fire later, but the firewood needed some time to dry off first – the price they paid for not gathering it before it started raining. And they needed a wash anyway.

There was a semi-enclosed cove by the foot of the rock formation, shielded from the wind on one side by the rising wall of the cliff and from the swelling waves by a row of serrated rocks sticking out of the seafloor.

She stripped out of her uniform, then, after a momentary consideration, took off the undershirt and briefs as well and waded into the water, up to her knees, gathering the resolve for a dive. The water wasn’t cold, it actually felt warm compared to the air temperature, but she still hesitated, not even sure why. Maybe it was because of how dark the water looked.

Loki joined her and stood by her side. He didn’t follow her example and was still wearing his usual underclothes. And all the metal he couldn’t take off, even more conspicuous now that she was reminded it wasn’t a part of him. It was too easy to forget.

He studied her, up from her knees to the top of her head, his gaze slipping over her curves and briefly pausing on the old scar on her ribs. Strangely, there wasn’t anything truly inappropriate about the stare. Just curiosity. And his eyes still stopped at her face and did not stray.

She still felt weird, but just for a second. _You’ve seen the inside of his mind, Natasha, you can’t get any more naked than that._

“I’d say you’re checking me out if I didn’t know better,” she joked.

 _[Despite your previous claims, I can, on occasion, appreciate beauty,]_ he said simply and took a dive. She watched his silhouette move gracefully just below the surface of the water, until he came up for air on the far and of the cove, whipped his head back to get the hair away from his face and waved at her to follow. She did.

\---

They found one stone flat enough to sit on amongst the rocks between the cove and the open sea. The wind was cold on her skin and lashed at her back with raindrop-filled gusts that set her teeth to clinking and sent shivers down her spine. But it also felt kind of exhilarating and she was in no hurry to put on her drenched clothes and retreat into the cave.

Loki sat down next to her, his legs crossed, his hands folded in his lap, his spine straight. He often sat like that and there was something strung about the pose, as if he didn’t allow himself to fully relax, even while resting.

The lighting mark on his back was just as red and distinct as the first time she saw it. She placed her palm gently on the entry point between his shoulders. He balked under the touch and sucked in a quick breath but eased into it, almost immediately. She traced the line of the scar down, along his spine, marred skin rough and lumpy under her fingertips. Her hand reached the small of his back and she let it linger there for a moment before she pulled it away, the impression of the pain she… he felt when it was created still alive in her brain.

He brushed away the hair the seawater and rain stuck to his forehead then twisted his neck and contemplated her quivering lips through slanted eyes. They were probably turning blue at this point.

_[Can’t humans get sick from being cold?]_

“Some can. But I never do.”

_[We should go inside. Have a fire.]_

“Just… give me a moment, okay?”

 _[Okay,]_ he said and did not move.

“It looks… different,” she said after a moment of staring at the horizon.

_[What does?]_

“I don’t know. Everything. It _feels_ different, too. I can’t really explain it. It’s the same landscape, the same sky, the same sea, but each time I look at it, it’s like I’m seeing it for the first time. Like the world got… richer, more authentic, more detailed...”

 _[It will get better,]_ he said, a smile crinkling his eyes. _[Believe me.]_

She blinked. “What is it?”

 _[Magic,]_ he said, and his smile turned just a bit more bitter. 


	22. Know thy enemy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Natasha gossips a lot and Loki is a being a leftist. Also, there be feels ahead, I think.

They didn’t do much walking the next day. It was still raining when she woke up and they just stayed where they were.

Loki must have wandered out before the sunrise, because there were two slimy fishes and a couple of those fleshy leaves from earlier waiting for her when she woke up. He was also wet again and positively pissed by that fact.

The old fire burned out during the night so she built a new, smaller one, closer to the mouth of the cave, so the smoke could get out, but they would still have a cover above their heads. It was a good compromise, compared to all the coughing and tearing up she had to endure the previous night, when she decided to light it further down and with moist fuel to boot.

He insisted on preparing the meal for her and she took it for a good sign, so she didn’t argue. Plus, he tended to be more agreeable if he could distract himself with a physical activity, as long as she refrained from speaking when his hands were busy. So she just nodded, professed her gratitude and watched in silence until he finished carving the catches and placed them on the rocks by the fire, so they would slowly cook.

 _[Tell me about the Avengers,]_ he asked after he was done. He spelled the name; they’ve never talked about it before and he had no sign for it. Natasha didn’t know if there even was an official one and nothing appropriately meaningful came to her mind on the fly, besides the sign for “revenge” that didn’t really cut it, so she left it like that.

“Why?” she raised an eyebrow.

_[I will need more information if I am ever to defeat you, of course.]_

“Are you really ready for seconds this soon?” she quipped. “I would imagine you’d give it at least another century or two after that smackdown.”

_[Do you not think I deserve at least some basic knowledge about the great heroes that beat me so thoroughly and brought me to my knees?]_

It was all idle talk, she knew, but it still managed to darken her mood, like always when Loki fell into his defeatist frame of mind. “Well, I did promise to answer your questions. But you wouldn’t want to risk _me_ being _unstimulated,_ would you? So, let’s make it a trade. I will tell you everything I know about the Avengers, but you will answer one question in return. No matter what I ask. No delaying or beating around the bush. No getting offended.”

_[Deal.]_

“You’re absolutely certain?”

_[Yes.]_

“Hmmm.” _That was easy._ “The whole Avengers shtick was Fury’s pet project for at least twenty years and pretty much no-one believed in that ever coming to life, besides maybe… some of his friends.”

_[How about you?]_

“I found him… benign, for the most part. Fury’s dedication was bordering obsession at points and if it weren’t for his position and his unique contributions in the development of SHIELD he would be kicked out and replaced with someone more reasonable, more likely than not. But it was how it was, and the Council averted their eyes when it came to Fury’s little side endeavor, even after he went off the books to try to recruit Stark. Nothing came out of it though, that first time. There was no one else and Stark was comfortable doing whatever low-level shit he was doing back then without SHIELD breathing down his neck at all times.

“But then you and Thor happened to Puente Antiguo and everything changed. We knew we are not alone anymore.”

_[You weren’t alone for a long time before that.]_

“That I also learned later. By now, I realize the chosen few had to know for decades and decided to keep it a secret. I probably wouldn’t be that surprised if I found it out earlier, but that wasn’t something I tended to concern myself with. I had other things to worry about. Like actual spy work. I used to be good at it.”

Loki’s eyebrows twitched ever so slightly. _[Stark was the first one?]_

“Not technically, no. Fury tried to recruit him first, not once, but twice. First time, Stark just refused. The second, he was deemed too self-centered and unlikely to work well as a part of a team. Even now he is not listed as an active member, only as a consultant. Which, I assume, is a position he is comfortable with, because I haven’t seen him throwing any temper tantrums about it. And his temper tantrums are a thing to behold.

“Besides, he has his uses when he stands on his own too. Takes the public eyes away from the more clandestine shit SHIELD is pulling, for one. He was quite a figure even before he started flying around in that suit and his story became a media focus right away. Well, at least some parts of it, minus the more gruesome details.”

_[What happened?]_

“Stark inherited a weapon manufacturing company from his late father, after the old man’s untimely demise. Most teenagers would probably blow the fortune on parties and buying useless shit, but not Stark. There was a hiccup here and there, but, in the end, he got a grip of it and took it further than it ever was before, branching out, exploring new fields, with Stark’s brilliant mind behind the design board. They still made most money on weapon contracts with US government and allied countries and that had to turn some eyes in his direction, sooner or later.

“The strike came from within though. His father’s best friend, who still held the second highest position on the company, sold him out.”

_[Why?]_

“And why do such things always happen? People craving more. More money, more power, more influence. It was the same here. And Stane’s plan was perfect in its simplicity. Stark goes to the Middle East for a weapons’ presentation and gets blown up in a seemingly random terrorist attack. The media mourn him for one or two news cycles and then everyone forgets, leaving Stane with a controlling interest in the company, for Stark has no heirs nor any other next of kin. Only it didn’t work out the way it was intended, and Stark lived. 

“He was captured though, by the very same group that was paid to kill him. There was a different roast they wanted to fry over the same fire. They wanted him to build them a weapon and tortured him until he agreed. Or pretended to agree, I’m not sure how exactly that went. All in all, they got a big pile of nothing instead, with a pinch of fiery death sprinkled on top, as he built his first suit in the cave they held him in, broke out and made his way home. Well, to be precise, not home but the nearest US military base, where they patched him up and sent him home in the first transport, but you catch my drift.”

Loki nodded. The curiosity in his gaze seemed genuine, so maybe he didn’t know much of those details. That was quite an encouragement for her to go on.

“The first thing he did when he got back home was to announce his company is done making weapons. Back then I thought he did that to bait whoever sold him out, but he is sticking to it so far, so that was probably a true change of heart and not just a part of a ploy. It still worked as one and Stane got pissed, they got into a fight, Stane got blown up and Stark decided it’s his turn to repay the world for all the deaths he caused by making weapons. Conveniently starting with wiping the organization that held him captive off the face of the Earth.

“That’s the point where SHIELD stepped in. They’ve been observing the development from the sidelines, but as long as he was solving his own shit, he posed no real threat, especially since his personal interest aligned well with US interests. But his appetite grew, and they realized a rouge agent like that can be as much of an asset as he can be a liability. Fury sent… one of his best agents to get Stark under control, made up a good cover story for his escapades, and so on. But Stark is Stark, and he doesn’t play by the rules. So, what does he do? He calls a press conference and outs himself as a vigilante superhero, also known as the Iron Man.”

Loki blew out a laugh. _[Your organization conceived an entire plan based on an idea of a proud man not admitting his valor.]_

“It does sound ridiculous once you put it like that. And it was Stark that we’re talking about. He was problematic in many regards, but the public always loved him. And it worked in his favor this time too, gaining him a cult status pretty much right away, making him untouchable and suddenly the one to dictate the rules, leaving SHIELD to follow.”

_[How does a man like Stark become so well known and loved by the masses on Midgard?]_

“He has been in the spotlight for a while. He has a big mouth and even a bigger intellect to back it up. And he is rich as… well, I don’t actually know, but very; his fortune is still in the top one hundred in the world after he blew a good chunk of it on passion projects and his suits. And, when I say he is smart, I don’t mean it in the regular sense of the word. He is smart as in you sometimes can’t even follow his logic as quickly as he thinks up and explains it, to the point it can get scary. I’ve met a lot of intelligent people. Like Fury. Or Banner. Or you,” she paused, but Loki only rolled his eyes at the compliment, “but no one comes close.

“He’s also a brilliant engineer. And not in the way some of the modern visionaries are called that. He is not only conceptualizing his inventions, leaving the dirty work to the research division, he designs them start to finish and often does prototype manufacturing. Place any piece of technology in front of him and he will take it apart and unravel its workings in fifteen minutes and upgrade it by the next day. He singlehandedly solved Earth’s energy crisis with a piece of tech he built in that Afghan cave, as a side project, just to power the suit. It’s been on the open market for months now, but it’s so far ahead of its time it hasn’t been reverse engineered yet, not even by Chinese. That’s also what keeps him alive. Well, the upgraded version does, but I think it’s similar.”

_[How did that come about?]_

“He was wounded in the attack and got some metal pieces stuck in his body. The power source in his chest keeps them away from his heart, I think.”

_[A man of his status should have access to the best help your world has to offer and it sounds like something even Earth’s medicine can solve. Why didn’t he get it removed?]_

“No idea. Maybe it’s the lack of trust or he deems it too risky. Or maybe he feels it defines him now and removing it would remove a part of who he is.”

Loki nodded, understanding. She had a feeling that would be something he would sympathize with.

“If SHIELD ever let him take a look at that spacecraft that crashed on Mojave in the nineties, we would be phoning Earth from our space phones now, asking them for a ride. Too bad they didn’t. So, if you decide to get stuck on an alien planet with one of the Avengers ever again, you should consider taking Stark instead of me.”

_[If he is as smart as you say, I would not live to see the night.]_

“I don’t think so. He would die of boredom without someone to bounce his ideas off of. He has an actual AI… Artificial Intelligence,” she amended, after Loki looked at her with confusion, “running his home. It’s the only one on Earth that we know of. He built and coded it because he was lonely and needed someone to talk to.”

_[He told you that?]_

“No, his girlfriend told us that. Maybe not in those exact words, but it was still in his file.” In Coulson’s report, to be precise, but she didn’t mention that, avoiding putting a stick into that particular anthill again.

_[You’ve met him in New York?]_

“A few years earlier, actually. When Fury tried to recruit him the second time, I was sent to California to assess him. To work my charm on him.”

_[Did it work?]_

“Kind of? He was dying at the time, so that was probably why he didn’t figure me out before Fury showed up to urge him to do something about the dying part.”

_[Dying?]_

“Of palladium poisoning,” she explained. “Before he upgraded the device in his chest, it was running on an element called palladium. It was keeping him alive but also slowly killing him. Now it runs on some space energy or something equally confusing to me, but I guess it’s all fine, since he is apparently not dying anymore.”

_[You are not wrong.]_

“Of course I’m not,” she jeered, “but about which part?”

_[The source in his chest uses the same power as the Tesseract.]_

“What?!” she exclaimed in surprise. “How do you even know that?”

 _[I could sense it. That is why it did not work when I used the scepter on him.]_ He paused, judging her reaction. She already knew that, and it apparently showed.

“Oh, I guess we got lucky that Stark got that shrapnel stuck in his chest. You’d be the new ruler of Earth in no time with his brains and resources on your side.”

Loki shook his head. _[I only did that because I knew it is pointless. I haven’t tried with the Captain or Thor, have I?]_

She furrowed her eyebrows and stared at him intensely. “Excuse me?”

He waved his hands. _[It is not important anymore.]_

“I strongly disagree,” she insisted, “you can’t just say stuff like this and claim it’s not important. You promised you won’t lie to me!”

_[I am not lying. I simply do not wish to discuss affairs that no longer matter.]_

“Correct me if I’m wrong, but nothing of this matters,” she said. “I still want to know.”

It looked like Loki didn’t mind being reminded. _[It is still my turn.]_

She pouted and crossed her arms. “Fine.”

He sighed theatrically. _[You seem to respect him.]_

“Who? Stark?”

_[Yes.]_

“Yeah, I guess. He can be a major pain in the ass to work with as he is not one to follow orders. But you got to give credit where it is due, and he is one hell of a problem solver. And he just loves proving people who underestimate him wrong. And the thing he did with that nuke…”

Loki raised an eyebrow.

“A nuclear warhead,” she explained, “It was launched at New York, after your swarm came down from the portal.”

_[What does it do?]_

“In short? A big fucking crater in the ground, surrounded with an irradiated wasteland. I’m not sure how big that particular one was but it’s a safe bet it would wipe most of the city off the map, along with anyone still in it.”

_[Your people fired it? Why?]_

“I guess they wanted to contain the damage. To stop the Chitauri before they spread. To stop you,” she said grimly. “It was… a questionable call. Fury wanted to talk the Council out of it and then, when that failed, to prevent it from launching. But he couldn’t.”

_[Your rulers were willing to kill millions of their own kind to stop me?]_

She nodded. “Not our proudest moment as a society, that’s for sure.”

 _[And you say I am the crazy one,]_ he said and shook his head in disbelief.

She had to chuckle at that but also bit her tongue to not mention he admitted to trying a very similar thing back in Asgard. Whether he repressed the memory completely or just didn’t make that connection, the irony seemed to be lost on him in that one instance. “It’s an easy decision to make if you sit safely in a bunker far away, shielded from the consequences of your actions and with no one above you to require any responsibility. The idea behind the Council was that they were to be removed from influence of regional governments, a ruling body able to act above the divisions of countries and borders. But – like with many enlightened ideas – it failed miserably in practice. I sincerely hope something has been done to rectify that by now but I kind of suspect there wasn’t.”

_[Another layer of government? Humans love complicating things without need.]_

“Well, how did having one guy as your judge, jury and executioner work out for you so far?”

_[Point taken.]_

She laughed.

_[What did you do with the nuke?]_

“Stark figured out how to intercept it and carried it through the portal. We shut down the generator. I thought he was done for, but he somehow managed to come back before it fully closed. That was quite an impressive move.”

_[Are you trying to tell me you took that mothership out by accident?]_

“Well, yeah. Didn’t you know that?”

_[I was busy being a chew toy for your beast. It might have slipped my attention.]_

“I can imagine,” she quipped, “I hope it at least taught you a lesson not to fuck with the wrong crowd.”

 _[You were lucky Selvig left that failsafe in for you,]_ he bit back. She blinked, confused, but before she managed to say anything, he added, _[Still not your turn, remember?]_

She groaned. “What else do you want to know?”

_[You commend man’s wits and barely mention his fighting prowess.]_

“That comes as a nice bonus, sure,” she admitted, “but it’s obvious that his brain is by far his biggest asset. One needs to be mad to not recognize that.”

_[Is it common for a human to get praised for his mental competence and not his combat mastery?]_

She could recognize a loaded question when she saw one. “Hmmm. Yes, I would say it’s more of a rule than anything. I mean, every dimwit can learn how to throw a punch or fire a gun, and – bare some disability – everyone can train their bodies, at least to an extent. It can be impressive, don’t get me wrong, some people cherish physical excellence and feats, and you can get famous for pushing your boundaries, but more like in sports, not in… uhm, war-making. Having a brain to show up for? That’s what gets you the real gig, what makes the difference between those who follow and those who lead,” she said. Loki looked at her with a growing doubt as she went on. “Isn’t it how it is in Asgard as well?”

He breathed out a very unhappy laugh. _[Not at all.]_

On the surface it was a light-hearted comment, but there was so much disappointment and regret and just plain heartbreak in his eyes that it derailed the train of her thoughts for a moment. “I… I’m sorry,” she stuttered.

He waved his hand. _[I had a long time to get used to that. Tell me about the others. I want to see how you make it all about wits when you get to the beast.]_

“You’re making it too easy,” she sneered. “His name is Bruce Banner. And he is one of the most renowned scientists of this generation. His research on gamma radiation would win him a Nobel prize… A prize that very smart people get for revolutionizing science,” she explained, before he even asked, “if he didn’t refuse it. Hulk – the beast – is just a result of a failed experiment. Banner was trying to replicate the serum that was used to enhance Rogers… You know what, I think I should have started with that story instead.”

_[Feel free.]_

“Thank you for your permission.” She did an exaggerated bow and flashed an obviously fake smile. “I don’t know what I would have done without it.”

He glared at her, apparently not impressed with her expertise in sarcasm at all.

“Steve Rogers, who you probably know as Captain America,” she said, and he made a face at the name, “yeah, don’t get me started on that either, but those were different times and it kind of stuck. He was born sometime in the twenties. That’s, like, almost a century ago.”

_[I know how your time measurements work.]_

“That’s another quality distinguishing you from Thor then.”

_[I am not surprised. Numbers confound him greatly.]_

“Tell me about it. On the other hand, no, don’t. I don’t want to know,” she said with a smirk. “Anyways. Rogers. He took a part in a military program to create an army of enhanced individuals. You see, US were at war with some countries around the globe at the time, it was quite a big deal.”

_[I might have heard a thing or two about that.]_

“And you and your sky buddies still decided to do nothing about it?” she snapped, suddenly upset. She knew it was irrational and she shouldn’t feel that strongly about something that happened decades ago, but she still felt the urge to say it.

_[We were discouraged from taking part in petty mortal affairs. You never know which side is right and it is easy to make things worse.]_

“I’d say it was pretty damn obvious who was in the right in that particular case,” she blurted, then forced herself to add a placating, “but I guess it makes sense.” There was no point in arguing about it and it’s not like convincing Loki would change a thing.

 _[Other races of the Nine do not take much interest in human activity as long as it’s not a threat on a greater scale. They are too preoccupied with their own wars and conquests,]_ he provided, unprompted. That was more in line with the rest of the picture he painted about the Nine. After all, what’s a warrior society without a war to fight? _[And people of Earth were always well capable of killing each other without external help and only got better at it as the time progressed.]_

“Well, in that case one side was a lot more capable than the other. United States kind of got dragged into it against their will, which, as you would learn if you studied their history, is quite uncharacteristic. And they were losing. So, they cooked up a plan – create an army of supersoldiers. They had a bunch of scientists making a serum. That’s the important part, so make sure to take note of it, it becomes important later.

“They decided to test it on a single volunteer first. Rogers offered his services and was picked for the task, although his file is not really clear about the reason. It says it was because of his personality, or his ‘heart’, but I assume there must’ve been more to that. Whatever it was, they did the trial, and it was successful.”

_[How does it work?]_

“The serum? Honestly, no idea. You’d have to ask Banner; he dedicated his work to crack that code. I know it did some something about his genetic code because there are two samples for Rogers in the SHIELD database, one from before and one from after, and they do not match. But I don’t know if it’s the same for…” she stopped and bit her lower lip.

_[You.]_

Her eyebrows rode up. “What makes you think that?”

_[You are stronger than a regular human.]_

“Uhm, crossfit?”

_[You’re older than you look…]_

“I never said such a thing.”

_[You suggested it very unambiguously.]_

“I didn’t know you were paying attention.”

_[I always do.]_

“I can almost believe that.”

_[It did not work as well for you as it did for the Captain.]_

“I’m not sure if it was even the same thing, although it would make sense if it was a watered-down formula based on the same research. I was never told what it was and for a long time I didn’t even know it worked. But then I started noticing… things. Small, at first, something that could be put on a curb of a lot of exercise too, like higher stamina or pain resistance. But, as the time progressed, it became obvious that I’m not aging nearly as quickly as I should be. Then I knew.”

_[Any negative effects?]_

“I hope not. Nothing I would notice. I know Rogers can’t get drunk, but he was treated with a lot more potent version of the serum and his metabolism is off the charts. I was spared that cruel fate. I still can drink most men under the table before I’m done though,” she added with a smirk. “But that might be just because I’m Russian.”

Loki definitely did not get that joke. _[Why not give it to everyone?]_

“Like, every human? I don’t think that would ever happen, even if we still had the formula. There’s too much power in keeping it as a secret.

“Besides, after the trial run there was an enemy sabotage, the existing supply got destroyed in an explosion and the head scientist who figured it out got killed. He left some notes, but key data was kept without a paper trail out of a fear of espionage and no one was able to recreate the research in full since then, even if many have tried, including my former… employers. And SHIELD. So far no one succeeded fully and there were a few incidents too, like the one with Banner.”

_[The Captain is the only one of his kind.]_

“Yeah. The project was deemed a bust and no one thought Rogers could be of much use on his own. So, they created this persona, this Captain America character around him, called him a true American hero and paraded him in front of the actual soldiers being sent to the battlefronts to die, to boost their morale.

“From what I gather, that pissed Rogers off, a lot. I can see that, he is not the sort of man who can stay back when other people are fighting.

“Now comes the part that could be of interest to you. On the other side there was this general guy. He was super into two things: the supersoldier serum and occult stuff. The scientist who later perfected it for Americans was in his service first, before he fled and gave his formula to the enemy. Schmidt didn’t abandon the idea though and there are reports he injected himself with a half-baked version of it. Not sure about how exactly it worked out for him, but it’s generally assumed it wasn’t… perfect. I’d say that his nickname – Red Skull – has something to do with the effects too. But it shouldn’t be surprising, the very idea is tantalizing, especially if you’re fighting a war.

“His other interest is a lot more important in the long run, even though the most he did at first was just some freaky experiments with stuff you find in folk ballads and the like. He was obsessed with magical artefacts too, but no one cared much about his act. At that point people didn’t realize there could be any truth to what he was doing, the legends about you and your people were believed to be just that – legends, with no validity to them. And paying attention to a single dude who’s too much into fairy tales was not important in the bigger picture. At least until he stumbled upon the real deal...”

_[The Tesseract. In Odin’s vault.]_

“Yeah. You knew about that?”

_[I knew it was there and that it was taken.]_

“Why was it there in the first place?”

 _[The All-father decided it is not safe to store it on Asgard. It was too powerful, and the contents of the royal treasury were already enough of an incentive for potential intruders. It was not the first nor the last artifact to be given that treatment,]_ Loki explained. _[It was thought to be safe on a backwater world like Midgard.]_ He spelled the name, ignoring the sign he had for Earth, probably to make a point. He continued, _[at least that is the official version. I don’t know the real reason if there is a different one. Maybe he was just trying to meddle to see what happens.]_

“It worked just peachy then,” she said somberly. “Seriously, everyone would be spared a lot of pain in the ass if he just built, I don’t know, a better basement or something?”

_[We wouldn’t have met.]_

“What?”

_[You know what I said.]_

“Yes, and while I do appreciate the sentiment, I don’t understand how… You think this… Is this really such a perfect situation in your head that you wouldn’t trade it for peace for millions of people? For your own life?”

He shrugged. _[Tesseract being on Asgard would not change what happened between me and Thor. It would only make it unattainable for me,]_ he said, his moves slow and pointed. He wasn’t looking at her now, only staring at the distance with that detached expression she got to know too well by now. _[I would still be trapped in that place, only without a way out.]_

“Trapped? What place? What are you talking about?”

_[Are we not playing the game anymore?]_

“No, fuck that stupid game,” she lashed out. “You don’t get to say shit like this and then expect me to carry on babbling about people who are halfway across the universe from us.”

He looked at her with uncertainty and her heart skipped a bit. He told her the truth about his lineage, about killing his own biological father and about an attempted genocide of his own kind. The fact that he still hesitated now filled her with terror. What was it? How much worse could it get?

She moved closer and put a hand on his shoulder. He covered it with his own and let it linger a moment, before he pried her fingers away.

 _[I do not need pity,]_ he said, _[nor I deserve your compassion. Everything that happened was my own fault.]_

Of course, it couldn’t be something that he has done. It had to be something that’s been done to him. Every one of his stories ended like that. Talking to Loki sometimes felt like wandering through an abandoned building, only with little balls of sorrow and misery and hurt littering every corner instead of cobwebs and dust; painful memories spilling from behind every doorframe like a swarm of beetles scuttling away from the light.

“Let me make my own decision on that,” she squeezed around the lump in her throat.

There was that struggle on his face again. How big was it, that he was back to needing time to convince himself to go on first?

 _[When I fell from the bridge,]_ he started, each sign preceded by hesitation, _[I ended up in the Void. The space between spaces. A place without light, or sound, or smell. A place without life. I was supposed to be dead, but I was alive, somehow. I do not know why. Maybe, after my broken mind guided me there, my magic protected me. Maybe some unknown deity decided I did not deserve the mercy of death.]_

“How long…”

 _[I don’t know. It felt like an eternity, for there’s no time in the Void. I was certain I will never find a way out. There was a cold consolation in that.]_ He paused. His expression stayed neutral, but there was a bright intensity in his eyes. _[But it could not be more than a couple of days. A couple dozen, at most.]_

“Is that where…”

_[No. I was found. No one should be able to find me there. But he did. I do not know if by blind chance or if he was searching for something. But he found me...]_

“Who?” she blurted, before she could stop herself. She shouldn’t interrupt, she should let him tell the story how he saw fit. But she couldn’t take being kept at the edge like this.

_[Do you remember the man from the ship, back on Earth?]_

“That alien? The… Ebony Maw guy?”

_[Yes.]_

“It was him?”

_[No. His master. The one who controlled the swarm.]_

“You mean the Chitauri?”

_[That is just the Vanir word for a spawn. It is given to these types of species. Ones that are bred, not born. No one bothers to name them, usually, as they are made to be disposable. To be sold to the highest bidder as the cannon fodder.]_

“Aren’t they… sentient?”

_[These ones were, to a point at least. That’s how most of my knowledge about Ebony Maw’s master came about.]_

“Who is he?”

_[I will not mention his name, for he might find us if I do, like he found me in the Void.]_

“Is that something that can actually happen?” she asked, and Loki shrugged.

 _[I’m not sure, but I’ve heard rumors and I’m not willing to risk it. I was left with his troops for a long time and they did gossip amongst themselves when idle for too long and longing for battle. Some of it reached my ears.]_ His features were hard and more than a little bit uncertain. She did not need much to realize the mysterious master was someone of whom Loki was terrified and she knew how hard he was to frighten, so she didn’t even think to argue.

 _[I hope you really succeeded at getting the universe rid of that seethe of locusts permanently,]_ he remarked, and she stared at him, wide-eyed, but managed to keep her mouth shut this time.

_[Ebony Maw is one of his master’s most devoted servants. But there are others. He calls them his children. And maybe it is an unwritten rule of the universe that monsters use their families for the most atrocious deeds._

_[When I was pulled out of the Void, half mad and filled with anger and rage and grief, he offered me… a solution. A way out._

_[I refused. I expected him to end me._

_[Instead, I was taken to one of the moons where the swarms were bred. He left me there, at their mercy. To make me more…]_ he inhaled sharply, _[compliant,]_ he finished.

Her chest tightened and she could feel the burning behind her eyes. She could see where this was going, oh so clearly. “The memory I saw… That scar, on your back, is from them, isn’t it?”

He nodded, slowly and deliberately. _[Among other things, yes._

_[Their warlord was a mage. He was powerful and the most creative of them all. I never got to know his name. The spawns called him The Other, as he was not of their race. So that is what I call him too._

_[I tried to resist at first, but I was not strong enough. I was never strong enough, and the Void and their efforts only drained my willpower further. Then I tried to bargain. But they were not interested in my words. Only in my screams._

_[When their master finally showed up again, I was ready to beg at his feet. Just to get it to end. I did not care if I lived or died. I wanted to get out. Get away from that place._

_[And he graciously accepted my offer. When he placed his scepter in my hand… It felt like bliss. All the pain and all the doubts went away. I was flooded with surety. I knew what I had to do. I was shown a purpose. I had to get the Tesseract. I had to deliver it to my master. And that is what I tried to do.]_

“His scepter…” she whispered when the shock wore off, “so he controlled you. Like you did the others.”

_[No. Not in the same way. The scepter’s spell demands an unassailable subjection from its targets. Wipes your mind clean of your own wishes and wants and leaves only a desire to follow your master’s command as the centerpiece. I needed to be able to act on my own. I was still myself, with all my anguish and all my rage. But my true self was suppressed, bending under the wishes of the scepter and it wanted only one thing: to reunite with the Tesseract. All the other needs and purposes were… put aside. Just an echo. Loud enough to slip a loose thought about leaving a back door. To stop myself from using the scepter on Thor, even if I was not entirely sure why I was doing that. I did not care about what happens to the swarm either, for there was no love lost between me and them. I set them on a flashy, yet strategically unimportant target that was ill suited for their fighting style and hoped your military will be capable enough to deal with them. I must say, you did better than I expected.]_

He stopped and looked at her. _[Do not weep for me,]_ he said and reached to brush a tear off her cheek. Only then she realized she was crying. _[It is not worth your sorrow. Everything I did, everything that led me to that point, I did myself. And this is the price I’m paying for that.]_

“You should… You should have told me… told us sooner,” she said, her words quivery at the edges.

His expression turned hard suddenly. _[Would you believe me? Back on Earth, after I just stopped trying to kill you?]_

“I don’t know,” she admitted and smiled weakly through the tears, “probably not. At least not all of it. But you could still try.”

_[I did not know I had so little time. Healing the injuries I got from the beast was my priority. It would be hard to do anything with a broken spine, whether it was talking or running. The effects of the scepter’s grip took a while to wear off too. Then the gag was on and I was being carted away for a pleasant session of mortal hospitality.]_

“So, you figured that out, huh?” she said, matter-of-factly, even if her voice was still trembling. She wrapped her arms around herself, as if it was the chill in the air that sent the shivers across her body. _A broken spine, fuck._

_[Of course I did. You were not really all that inconspicuous.]_

“Would you talk to them?”

 _[I would probably try to run the moment this was off,]_ he pointed at his face, _[and Thor was not in the room.]_

“Where would you go?”

He shrugged. _[I never thought the plan through that far ahead. I think I would find a place to lay low, lick my wounds and only then decide what to do next.]_

She nodded; her lips pulled into a thin line. The thought that she almost took part in torturing a man who just got away from months of captivity burned like an infected wound in her brain. It wouldn’t be any better if it wasn’t Loki, but that also didn’t help because she knew, she just knew, that – if it ever came to that – he would just prop his chin up, straighten his back, glare defiantly and _take it_.

“That’s why you weren’t worried about being taken to Asgard, right? You’d come clean and it would make everything right. Only it didn’t work out…”

 _[No,]_ came an answer, quick and pointed and Loki laughed. _[I would rather be branded a traitor than a traitor and a craven.]_

“What?”

_[The All-father does not care about motives, only the ends, at least where I’m concerned. And my end spoke louder than any words ever could. I needed to stop the Mad Titan from getting what he wanted and I needed Asgard to know there’s a danger they must prepare for, and I fulfilled my purpose. The rest was irrelevant.]_

She had nothing to say to that. She wanted to hope it was only something Loki convinced himself of and not an actual truth, but she couldn’t. He told her himself, he might have not even gotten a chance to speak in his defense before his sentence was waged. Yet he was still willing to go home and accept punishment for crimes that he was forced into committing. “You could still tell _me_ earlier. After we ended up here, I mean.”

And why leave the bits and pieces in, like Hans and Gretel’s breadcrumbs on the forest path, for her to find and follow home, if he didn’t want her to know?

_[But then it would not change a thing. It does not change a thing now. It is only for my benefit.]_

“What?”

 _[You were right. It is easier to carry a burden if you share it,]_ he said with a deep frown, _[and I am weak.]_

“You might be many things, Loki,” she said, “but weak is not one of them.”

He huffed dismissively. _[A better man would not have crawled at the feet of his tormentors.]_

“Maybe that’s true. But I don’t know that many of those so-called better men, who would also be able to survive months of torture and come out on the other end with enough clarity of mind to strike a blow against their captors either.”

_[There’s no honor in having a survival instinct.]_

She chortled. “From my own experience, honor is often just an excuse for not doing things that need to be done. I mean… I don’t know if what you did was the best in that situation or if there was a different solution because I wasn’t there. I don’t know what I would do in your place. But I know _you_. And I trust your judgement.”

_[My judgement? Your own people have suffered and died because of my judgement.]_

“No. Stop. We are not doing this,” she said firmly and looked him in the eye. “I know where this is going. You don’t want to deal with me and all my _pesky sympathy_ so you’re trying to push me away. To scare me with your awful nature, _again_. Guess what, this isn’t going to happen. You’re stuck with me. Get that into your head.”

He held her gaze for a moment before letting out something between a cough and a joyless laugh. He ran his fingers through his hair, then got up and marched away, just to stop by the mouth of the cave. He crossed his arms at his chest and stood there, looking away into the distance. 

She got up as well. It wasn’t a good moment for him to be alone with his thoughts.

She stood by his side and listened to the whisper of the falling rain and waves crashing against the rocky shore in the distance. The stormy weather with its thick layer of clouds covering the sky made the slice of landscape visible from the cave’s entrance look so much like home, making her heart ache with longing.

“Why didn’t you try to run?” she asked after a while. “Not on Earth, I understand you were not thinking straight at first and got no chance later, but… before.”

_[There was nowhere to run to. Even if I somehow managed to escape the prison they fashioned for me, there was no place to hide on that moon. No one I could beg for help. I could not even breathe the air there, at least not for long. And the first thing they did was to seal my magic away, so I could not leave.]_

She frowned, all too keenly remembering the scream that was allowed to leave his lips. Also… “But you said you were trying to bargain with them.”

He nodded and looked at her, puzzled, _[I do not fully follow the connection you are trying to make between the two.]_

“Can magic be blocked without…” She pressed fingers to her lips, “this?”

He studied her for a long moment before realization dawned on his face. _[You don’t need a gag. Casting spells has nothing to do with speaking the words, even if it helps sometimes, you should know it by now. It can be anything you can lock on a person so that it stays in a constant physical contact and has the capacity for the required spellwork. The Other had a set of shackles for that, not unlike the ones Thor put on me after the battle. The spell on them worked in a less restricting way, allowing me to draw power from certain sources but not use it. The final outcome was similar enough.]_

She gaped at him. “Are you telling me this wasn’t even needed?”

Loki nodded, then, after seeing her consternation and apparently misinterpreting it as disbelief, he added _, [Thor used very similar ones on me before, each time he or his friends grew weary with sparring weapons against magic. He knew it would work.]_

She absorbed the news and painstakingly catalogued them in her head. Not only there was another, less degrading way of separating Loki from his powers, not only Thor knew about it, not only he applied it already, but he also had a history of causally using it on his brother before, for shits and giggles.

Her imagination served her a visual rendition, unprompted. Loki, standing in a training yard with his hands chained, facing Thor in full glory of his regal armor and with the hammer at the side. She felt sick.

“So why…” she started, but the words got stuck. She cleared her throat. “Why would Odin have Thor do _this_ to you?”

_[If I was ever considered adequate at something besides magic tricks, it was my gift with words. Making me unable to use it… What’s the expression? Two birds, one stone? Also, to humiliate me, but that part should be obvious by now.]_

“You know what? It is a good thing we are not going home. Because I might actually murder Thor if I ever saw him again,” she said flatly.

_[I know the feeling, believe me. But then he looks at you with his big, naïve eyes without even a hint of understanding and all your resolve is gone. He has no idea how many times that stupid look on his face saved his life.]_

She couldn’t tell if Loki was being serious or not entirely, but she couldn’t hold it against him either way.

“You agreed to having your magic locked away for training?”

 _[Yes_. _I was young and inexperienced, and I did not read much into it. I enjoyed the challenge, even if I could rarely win. And I knew the chains would come off as soon as we are done. It was all in good fun. At least until the All-mother found out one time and scolded us for playing such stupid games.]_

She didn’t miss how he hesitated before using the sign for “mother”.

_[I did not realize how it would feel to be separated from my magic for long, then. I would not do that now.]_

“How does that feel?”

_[It’s hard to describe.]_

“Can you try?”

Loki took a deep breath. _[Learning the workings of your own mind and recognizing the push and pull of the energy on you and all around you opens you up to seeing the world in a new, previously unknown way. You discern happenings that you were not aware were there before, notice the underlaying patterns in reality. It’s like developing a new sense. You told me how the world looked different for you now, and that was only your basic intuition after a few brief sessions, it gets a lot more intense the further you progress in your explorations and studies._

 _[Blocking one’s magic cuts that all off. It feels…]_ he paused, uncertain of what words to use. _[It feels like you’re suffocating and can’t draw air even if you know it’s all around you. Like you are stumbling in the dark, unable to see. Like one of your limbs got chopped off but you can still feel pain where it used to be.]_

Well, that was pictorial enough. _Fuck_.

“That sounds horrible,” she admitted and realized how inadequate the adjective was compared to his description.

He shrugged and she almost laughed. Only it wasn’t funny, and she knew his reaction was the same damned misplaced sense of dignity, the same unconscious need to appear strong no matter the cost that ate away at his sanity, that made him keep all his hurts and grudges inside until they almost destroyed him, that made him joke and play it tough when he was barely able to stay upright.

“I wish I could help,” she whispered, “and not only because it would mean we could go home…”

 _[I know, even if I cannot think of a good rationale for that.]_ She just made an exasperated face, because she was pretty damn sure he knew her motivations well. _[And you did help. Even before I could give you any reason to do so.]_

“And look how great that turned out,” she said bitterly and gestured around.

 _[It is still preferable to… being back with them. Maw was there to drag me back, so his master could punish me for my failure,]_ he said and breathed in sharply. _[At least here I can die on my own terms.]_

She couldn’t tell which was worse, seeing him admit it so openly, or how his face remained emotionless when he did.

 _[If I regret anything, it is only dragging you along. I did not anticipate this is what was going to happen.]_ His hand formed a fist and he moved it in a circular motion against his chest.

Everything Loki has said so far was slowly chipping away at her and that was just enough to break her apart. All the puzzle pieces, all the different colors and shapes, that looked like they couldn’t come from matching set for so long, suddenly snapped into place, creating a picture. And it wasn’t pretty. Oh, how well she could see the pressure under which his mind shattered and how he was left alone in the dark to pick up the pieces. Being lied to for his entire life, being taught to despise the very thing he was, being used as a puppet for a monster bent on destruction, preceded by months of torture. And then, after that hardship was done, Loki’s own father took two of his biggest strengths, his words along with his magic, with one device, designed to hurt him when he tries to fight it, that clings to him like a second skin. A personal hell he has to carry, until it finally kills him. A _reward_ at the wake of a long night, hurt and despair and betrayal left hiding in the shadows. Just because he wasn’t strong enough to endure endless torment. Because he tried to do whatever he could to survive.

She got closer and pulled Loki into a firm embrace. His first instinct was to jerk away, but she held onto him, wrapping her arms around his shoulders tighter and burying her face in the crook of his neck. “You have nothing to be sorry for where I’m concerned,” she whispered. “It was worth it.”

He stood still for a moment, frozen and tense. Then she felt the strain draining away from his stance as his hands found their way to the small of her back and he rested his cheek on the top of her head.

She nudged the side of his neck with her nose and her lips brushed over his bruised collarbone. His breath hitched, his throat worked as he swallowed, and he clutched his hands into her clothes but did not move them to take it anywhere further.

It was the only right place to be in the whole universe. She wished she could never let him go, as if her arms could protect him from all the things the fate had yet in store, shield him from all the pain and cruelty and sorrow, create a kinder, softer version of the world, just for the two of them. It was childish and inane and could not crack the hard shell of reality, but it was still nice to imagine. So she didn’t pull away.

Loki didn’t pull away either, for a long while. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The first half of this chapter is basically Natasha giving a crash course of the MCU up to the Avengers to Loki. I know it’s just a bunch of repeated information everyone knows already but I still had a lot of fun writing it and I kind of wanted to try my hand at Natasha’s perspective on it, so I’m leaving it in. Fight me if you disagree.
> 
> Also, I warned you.


	23. Fine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which things are fine until they aren't.

“You didn’t finish telling me about the Avengers this morning,” Loki said and reclined further, propping himself up with his elbows, then stretched his legs and crossed them at the ankles. “Ah, this is refreshing.”

“What is?” She sat down and couldn’t help but shiver when her bottom touched the ice. Loki was right, it wasn’t that cold if she didn’t think about it. The problem was she _was_ thinking about it.

“Not having to move my hands all the time, for one.”

She sighed. “Wasn’t I supposed to be, you know, practicing?”

“You are. You are using your core and every minute of it makes it more natural for you. Just try to keep yourself aware of the part of your mind where it resides, and you will get used to it, eventually.”

“Isn’t there anything more I can do? To, you know, speed things up?”

“Some things cannot be rushed. This is one of them. Your progress has already exceeded my expectations.” She smiled and tried not to blush, even if it didn’t really feel like she deserved it. “Not that they were that high to begin with,” he added, and it made her smile even wider. 

“All right. So, what is it that you think I left out?”

“You were halfway through the good captain story before I interrupted you.”

“Well, I don’t think I can match your dramatic timing, that’s for sure,” she said, trying for a joke, but it came out flat. “But I’m going to do my best.”

“That’s the spirit,” Loki said with a sneer and blew off a snowflake that settled on his eyelashes. 

“Where was I?”

“The general found the Tesseract and was, presumably, experimenting with it. Most likely with little to no notion what it is that he is experimenting with.”

“Yep, spot on. Besides all the occult stuff that there’s not much of a record left of, he had his group of scientists study the Tesseract for its use as a power source. Mostly for weapons, because, well, they were at war. And he was building an army, using his version of the serum, too, and not exactly willing volunteers to fill out the ranks. Some of them happened to be prisoners of war, including Americans, and – to Schmidt’ ultimate demise – one American in particular, Roger’s friend. Which made Steve quite mad. 

“He basically stole some equipment and went over the enemy lines, all alone. Against all odds, he not only lived, but managed to free most of the hostages in that prison camp.

“That little escapade made the higher-ups aware that Rogers can be useful in more ways than one. Not only a symbol, but an actual asset too. So they cut him loose, even allowing him to choose his own team. ‘The Howling Commandoes’ they were called, on the propaganda posters and, later, in the history books. They ran over fifty missions behind the enemy lines, pushing the wages of war slightly but surely in our favor. That’s when Rogers got his shield made too. If one is to believe the rumors, it was made by Stark.”

Loki shot her a questioning look, the timeline not adding up in his head.

“Not Tony Stark, his father. He was working for the US military back then as the head of one of the research divisions. I’m not sure if he was as much of a genius as his son is, but he did figure out a thing or two on his own.

“In the meantime, Schmidt was growing more and more deranged with his ideas. I don’t remember if he got deemed too unstable and relieved of his duty or if he just decided that unprompted, but he disobeyed his orders and was now considered a rogue agent by his superiors. He had gathered quite a formidable force at that point, fueled both by his human experimentation and the research on the Tesseract as the power source, which, as it turned out, was quite useful if you want to build a hell of a lot of weapons.”

“I can see a pattern there,” Loki interjected.

“Because you were so much more creative with it,” she bit back. 

“I could have been if I really wanted to. There’s so much one could do with such a power…” he said, and she would swear his eyes turned dreamy there for a moment, before he snapped out of it. “But maybe it’s for the best it stays locked on Asgard now, that will make it that much harder to obtain for anyone who wishes to use it for destruction.”

She smiled. If she needed any further proof that he shook off the illusions of grandeur from before completely, here it was. “You think it’s safer there?”

“It’s as safe there as it could be and reaching for it means invoking the All-father’s wrath, with all the fury and fire that rides with it. There’s hardly a better deterrent.”

“That sounds suspiciously like one of the hungry formularies Thor would say about the Aesir might.”

“Maybe. But this one is true. Odin might not be a perfect king, but he was never hesitant to protect his possessions,” he said. “And it’s _Æsir_ ,” he added, and his inflection made her sure her butchered pronunciation drove him insane all this time.

“Too bad it didn’t extend to his children.”

“Well, Thor is quite thriving.”

“I meant you.”

“I know,” he said quietly and sighed, a sad smile pulling his lips tight. “Although I got the possession treatment at least. Locked up securely until there was a use for me. It turned out _just fine_.” He paused and his smile turned a bit warmer and more genuine. “Oh Norns, I had no idea I would ever miss sarcasm.”

“You’ve been doing quite good for yourself even with the limitations.”

Loki barked out a laugh, sharp and amused, and it was a delightful sound. She closed her eyes and tried committing it to her memory, save it for later. 

“Natasha?”

She blinked her eyes open and gaped at him. “Well, now we are even at surprising each other with using our names for the first time, at last.”

“I, for once, had a reason.”

“That’s not the worst excuse I’ve ever heard, I’ll give you that.”

“You’re too generous.”

“Aren’t you a ray of sunshine yourself?”

Loki chuckled again and they sat in silence for a while, until he rolled to his side and bumped her knee, peeling her attention away from the billowing mists beyond the edge of the glacier.

“What?”

“What was the question?”

“The question?”

“The one you wanted to trade for.”

“Oh,” she murmured, flustered. “I wanted to ask you about the memory I saw. But I guess I got my answer already, didn’t I?”

He nodded curtly and his smile disappeared. 

“I didn’t mean to bring it up, but you asked, so…”

He waved his hand dismissively. “There’s still some of that story of yours left, I hope. Because it would be quite anticlimactic if that’s all of it.”

She chuckled. “No, there’s more of it and I promise I’ll get to it sometimes in this century. Unless… wait, shouldn’t we go? We are here for… quite some time, I think. Or not.” She hated that absolute lack of the sense of time, now more than ever.

“The spell is still dormant. I’d feel it otherwise.”

“That’s why we should go. We are pushing our luck.” She started to rise, not even sure why. She didn’t need that to leave the place. 

“No, stay,” he said, “please?”

The pleading note in his tone made her sit back and nod. He wanted this to last and it wasn’t hard to tell why. “All right, it’s your call,” she said around the objection that welled up in her throat. “So, Schmidt had his army and his weapons, but was now running his own enterprise and not just following orders, which made him twice as dangerous. The Allied generals were aware of that, but there was little to do. The main forces were already spread thin over multiple fronts and there was hardly any reason to send the troops to deal with some third party when there’s a war to win. But, luckily for the free world, there was Rogers and his Commandoes, they barely constituted a part of the army at that point anyway.

“And so Rogers was sent to deal with Schmidt. He even got a small unit as a backup, but it was still nowhere close to match what they were up against. But, yet again, he not only lived, but managed to get to the compound where Schmidt was hiding, slaughter his way through and get to the man himself. They fought, but in the end Schmidt escaped in his ‘final solution’ plane, taking the cube with him. Rogers chased him and got on board just before it took off. They fought some more, until Schmidt decided to use the Tesseract.”

“I assume it didn’t end well for him?”

“Not at all. He got vaporized. Or, as some say, transported somewhere, but the point is, he was never to be seen again.”

“My bet is on the latter. It is the Space Stone, after all.”

“A Space Stone?”

“Tesseract’s usefulness as a power source is but a side effect. Its main merit is spacetime continuum manipulation and there’s no other artifact in the entire universe that can do so as effectively.”

“How do you know all that?”

“It told me.”

“Uhm…”

“When I held it, just for that brief moment,” he said and there was both longing and fear etched in the lines of his face. “It has a mind on its own, in a sense. It called to me. Resonated with my magic. Told me of things I could achieve with its power. That’s why I kept as far away from it as I could, most of the time. That song clashed with the scepter’s wishes and it felt like my mind was going to explode.”

“That makes sense, I suppose,” she said, warily. “Any idea where he might have gone?”

“No. But the Tesseract doesn’t obey the usual rules of space travel, nor it follows the already existing paths as it has more than enough raw energy to carve one for itself. In inexperienced hands its wielder is fully at the Stone’s whim. The man ended up right where the Tesseract thought he should go. In the void of space if he was lucky.”

“Right… You would know.”

“I wouldn’t call _myself_ lucky. I survived, after all.”

“That’s lucky.”

“Depends entirely on the context.”

She sighed. She could see why he wouldn’t consider the trade-off worth it, seeing what he had to go through afterwards. “With Schmidt gone, Rogers was left to pilot the ship. It was carrying bombs, supercharged with the cube’s power, aimed at some major US cities, including New York. The city doesn’t seem to be able to catch a break.”

“What can I say, it is an alluring target if one wants to put forth a statement.”

“You have no idea… At least that time it didn’t come to that. Rogers crashed the plane into the sea. It stopped the attack, obviously, but got him trapped under the ice.”

“Why didn’t he land it?”

“I’m not sure, I kind of got bored with the file at that point, as I knew most of it from TV and history lessons anyway. Maybe it was damaged, or maybe he didn’t know how. Or didn’t want to risk it.”

Loki’s eyebrows twitched at that, but he didn’t comment. He didn’t have to, she knew too well that he wouldn’t skip any opportunity to learn something new and found her ignorance appalling. 

She smiled and continued. “They searched for him, first the military, then SHIELD, then some private parties too. But as the time went on, the hopes dwindled and so did the resources and he was believed to be truly lost. Until earlier this year, when orbital scans found remains of the plane in the Arctic ocean. And Rogers along with it. Yet again, he shouldn’t have lived, but he did.”

“There’s one trait I have in common with Captain Rogers, it seems,” he said lightly.

“I’m not falling for that bait again,” she said with a sneer. “You want me to stroke your ego, you have to earn it.”

“Duly noted,” he responded lightly. “It must’ve been quite a shock for a mortal. Your little world has changed a lot in the last couple of decades.”

“I’d say so, yeah. But he seems to be holding up all right, all things considered, at least according to official assessment. I had no opportunity to exchange more than a dozen words with him. Although his notions of sacrifice and bravery does feel a bit outdated.”

“What about the general’s army? I assume Rogers didn’t eliminate every single one of them?”

“Far from it. He and his Commandoes barely chipped the surface. But soon after Cap took off with Red Skull, the backup arrived. As I said, most of the army was not exactly there voluntarily and –with their boss gone – they weren’t all that eager to fight for his cause. Some were killed, most surrendered. Same with the science team. Quite a bit of the Hydra weaponry was… That’s the name of the Schmidt little side project,” she explained when he frowned. 

Loki crooked his head and watched her, the frown deepening.

“What?”

“I’ve heard that name.”

“It’s not out of the question. It’s quite prominent in human culture. Some sort of mythological monster… creature… thing. Roman. Or maybe Greek? I’m not sure,” she said. At this point she wouldn’t be surprised in the slightest if that turned out to be real as well. Why should Vikings get the exclusive right to have their mythology validated? “A snake with three heads, or something. Or maybe it was a dog? No, that’s the Cerberus…”

Loki rolled his eyes with a loud, frustrated groan and the corners of his mouth rode up at that minutely. He probably missed that too. “Not in general, you twit. I mean in that context. More or less. Quite recently.” 

“Uhm… You did?” she asked, wondering if he refrained from insulting her on a regular basis just because she never showed him signs for the more poised slights. “Where?”

“One of the men that… Barton brought over didn’t react to the scepter’s control the way he was supposed to. The spell kept on unraveling, sending him into panic attacks or – at one point – even a psychotic fit. I couldn’t understand why, so I followed the link and picked his brain. And I found conflicting conditioning there. Layers upon layers of it. Like he was wiped and remade, over and over. Crudely and without any finesse. When I attempted to undo some of it, it all dissolved into a motley tangle of semi-forgotten memories. Of quests and orders and commands he did not want to follow but was forced to. At that first glance it looked like a lousy job of some very untrained or just very heedless mage, so I dug deeper. And I found that it wasn’t. There were glimpses. Some sort of a machine. Mortal technology, most definitely, inducing a state of deep hypnosis, if I had to guess, designed to break apart and program minds, induce unquestionable obedience. And there was one name all over the place. Hydra. And a lot of hailing.”

“That’s… impossible.” Not that she had a reason to distrust Loki’s words, but he had to be mistaken. “Hydra has been gone for like sixty years now.”

“I assure you it is not. From what I’ve seen in those memories they seem to be doing quite all right.”

“So, what, he was like a double agent?”

“I doubt it. He was useless as a spy in that state and releasing the control made him crumble completely.”

“A Manchurian candidate then?” she asked and got ready to explain the term, but Loki only shrugged.

“Perhaps,” he said, unconvinced.

“Did you fix him?”

“It wasn’t possible, at least not in the timeframe I operated upon. It would take weeks to sort out, with healing sessions in between, to repair the damage done to the brain.”

“What happened to him then?”

“I had no use for him like that as his mind completely unraveled after I released the scepter’s control, turning him incoherent and catatonic. I had Barton deal with the issue.”

“So, he is dead.”

“I don’t know. I never ordered Barton to kill him. I knew he would find a solution that would serve my quest best, because that’s what the scepter’s spell does. Creating mindless drones doesn’t require nearly as sophisticated spellwork and using it so would be a waste. I knew Barton was loyal. He had no other choice. That was enough,” he said, then added, so quietly it was almost a whisper, “I suppose that means he is dead.”

“I see,” she said numbly. She knew Loki was not in full control of his actions and it would be hard to keep his deeds against him after everything he told her, but it still hurt to hear it. “Do you remember his name? That man’s, I mean.”

“No.”

_ Right. _

“I never learned it. It wasn’t important,” Loki added, his eyes fixed at the horizon. All his good mood was gone, and she felt a pang of remorse for forcing the subject.

“How did Hydra manage to stay hidden all those years? Where do they even get their resources from? It’s not like the world is swarming with Nazi sympathizers these days.”

“If you can manipulate minds, everyone is a potential ally.” There was an appalled note in his tone. Where it came to mind control, Loki wasn’t a fan, and it wasn’t hard to guess why.

“But you said it wouldn’t hold.”

“The man was strong-willed and fought it, over and over. Not everyone would.”

Loki respected him, she realized, at least to a degree. “You were trying to help him, weren’t you? Trying to undo his conditioning, releasing him from the scepter’s control… Hoping Barton wouldn’t kill him.”

“I don’t know,” he said and pulled himself back up to a sitting position, then wrapped his arms around his knees. “Perhaps I did. Perhaps I envied his mettle. He was a mere mortal, yet he had more determination and willpower that I could ever muster. He stood up to those who were trying to leash him, where I broke under pressure.” He paused and studied his fingernails for a while. “Or maybe I was just curious and wanted to know what would happen if I did. I’ll never be able to tell.”

“But you do remember everything from that time, don’t you?”

“All the actions? Yes. But feelings behind them, motivations… They get muddled, entangled. It’s hard to tell where the scepter’s influence ended, and my own mind began or if there’s even a distinction between the two. Maybe all that cruelty and disdain were really mine and the scepter just took off the limitations.”

“What makes you think that?”

Loki shrugged. “I don’t know,” he repeated. He licked his lips and his tongue painted it red.

“It has started,” she said, alarmed. 

“Yes.”

“Get us out of here then! What are you waiting for?”

“I don’t know,” he said yet again. 

“You do.”

“I don’t want to go back _out there_.”

Yeah, she got that feeling. “We can’t stay.”

It looked for a second like he wanted to argue but found no argument. “I realize that.” He shifted positions, folding his legs, then extended his hand to her. There was an effort to keep steady in his voice. “Let’s do it together. I’ll show you how you’re supposed to pull out the right way.”

She grabbed his hand and a wave of emotions and half-formulated thoughts and concepts and ideas crashed over her with such a force it felt like a physical hit. She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to sort it out, but there was just too much to process all at once, and it all seemed so… foreign, like it was in a language she couldn’t speak.

_ Because it is _ , she understood. 

The buzz started to settle, making her aware of the piercing pain at the back of her throat. His throat. It pulsed and radiated into the jaw and resonated in the base of the skull, upturning and permeating every other thought with its intensity, twisting it to fit. And it was getting worse and worse every second until she had to fight to keep herself from crying out, not sure how much longer she’d be able to hold it. Is this how the spell felt for him every time?

Only one idea remained now. A way out, lit up with pieces of stars that glinted like ice crystals under the winter sun. She felt a pull and followed.

\---

The fire burned down to embers, the soft glow doing little to disperse the darkness of the cave, and the air was cold and moist. She breathed out a sigh of relief. The pain was gone.

For her.

She grabbed a couple of branches, tossed them into the fire and blew at the embers. It took little for the flame to rise and engulf the fuel. The circle of light broadened, dancing on the walls and ceiling of the cave.

Loki lay curled up on the little pile of straw, his arms raised over his head, as if he was protecting himself from a blow that could come any second. She kneeled next to him. A shudder ran through his body when she placed her hand on his side and his breathing was quick and wheezy.

“Hey,” she said softly. She wanted to ask if he was all right, but she knew both what the answer would be and that he wasn’t. “It will pass. Just breathe.”

His arms fell away from his face, like he couldn’t keep them up anymore. Blood was seeping from his nose and his mouth, soaking through the straw and pooling between the stones underneath. There was so much of it…

It was worse each time. They couldn’t keep on doing it, or else he might bleed to death. Fuck, there was so much blood she wasn’t sure if that’s not what was happening right now. And it just kept on coming.

She brushed hair away from his face and tugged it behind his ear. It left a red smear on his cheek.

Loki coughed and blood bubbled around the slits of the muzzle. He swallowed and she didn’t have to look into his head to see that it hurt to do so. And there was nothing she could do to help. Nothing she could say. Just… nothing. 

Tears, born of the impotence, prickled in her eyes and she willed them away. She should have insisted, she shouldn’t have allowed him to stall for so long. Should have.

She pulled off her shirt, stashed a bunch of straw inside and folded it into a small bundle. She placed the makeshift pillow under Loki’s head, as gently as she could. It wasn’t much, but at least his neck wasn’t bent at an unnatural angle like that.

Loki looked at her through half-closed eyelids. He looked dead tired and there was pain etched deeply into his features, but she’d swear there was a thin smile dancing in the corners of his eyes, before he let them fall close.

\---

It took way too long for the bleeding to stop, but it finally did. Loki was asleep at that point, or maybe just unconscious from exhaustion and blood loss, she couldn’t tell. But he was breathing and there was a quick, fluttery pulse beating away when she pressed her fingers to his wrist and that had to suffice for now.

She watched him, hour after hour. 

She wandered away, just briefly, to gather more wood when the moon-planed rose on the sky. She didn’t want to leave his side, but she knew she needed the light, and she couldn’t help but to sniffle in relief when she came back and found him still breathing.

The moon has set, and it started raining again, the patter dispersing the silence. Loki didn’t wake up. He didn’t even shift, so, after a minute consideration, she turned him to his back. He should be more comfortable like that and it didn’t look like he was in danger of drowning in his own blood anymore. He was a light sleeper, but he did not even stir when she moved him. 

She tore the sleeve from her uniform and soaked it in the cold water of the stream, then wiped his face and neck. His skin was clammy with sweat and warm to the touch. It would be within a normal range for a human, maybe even a little lower than that, but for Loki it meant a fever. She rinsed the cloth again and draped it over his forehead. 

“Please, don’t leave me,” she whispered and pressed her lips to his cheek. “I know you are ready, but I’m not.”

She hid her face in her palms. She could never be ready.

\---

Loki didn’t wake up in the morning either. So, she kept on rinsing and replacing the cloth and monitoring his breathing and heartbeat, because there was nothing else to do. 

She couldn’t help but think what would happen if he didn’t wake up at all. _Nothing, there is absolutely nothing you can do_ , was the most obvious answer that kept on forcing itself to the foreground of her thoughts, but she refused to listen.

Trying to reach out to him in his dreams might be a viable option if not for the fear of triggering the spell again and making it even worse, not to mention she wasn’t even sure it would work without him removing his mental defenses for her. It took quite a while for the spell to flare up the last time, but the effects were catastrophic, and she had reasons to suspect it’s going to be even worse the next time. That’s why there would be no next time. 

In the afternoon she went out again. It took her some time and a couple of trips to gather enough fuel to last the night and each time she returned to the cave checking on Loki was the first thing she did. His state didn’t seem to get better, but at least it wasn’t getting any worse and for now she proclaimed that a good thing. 

The night have fallen, and she was so tired her eyes fell close on their own if she just sat still for a moment. She moved to sit by the wall, next to Loki’s head, and started talking, like if he could hear her. 

She didn’t particularly care about what she was speaking of. It wasn’t about the subject, only about getting rid of the oppressive silence that pushed on her senses and tried to drown her under its weight. She couldn’t bear looking at Loki’s hollow face for too long, so she trained her eyes at the darkness that started just past the cave’s mouth and let the stream of words spill out.

She spoke about the missions she ran, first for KGB, filling the details she was missing with imagination and conjecture, then for individual clients when USSR fell, then for SHIELD after they recruited her. She spoke about Barton, about Laura, about Lila and Cooper. She spoke until her voice got hoarse and then some more. About the boys from her old team, about Elena, about Alexei, about the old lady with a bald cat that lived down the hall from her old apartment in New York who was convinced Natasha was a movie star in disguise because she wore shades a lot. About Justin from accounting who was sending her flowers on every Friday, asking her out, no matter how many times she told him no, about how the dead flowers kept on piling on her desk each time she was away on a mission for longer. She wondered if they kept on coming, now.

She ran her fingers through Loki’s hair, trying her best to untangle it and get the clumps of dried blood out. She watched the curls slide between her fingers, again and again, like tiny whisps of darkness. 

Then she cried.

\---

A subtle clink was what woke her up and she opened her eyes just in time to see Loki stir. His eyes flew open, for just a moment, before he squeezed them shut again. 

He sucked in a breath and reached to take the cloth off.

“Let me,” she said, surprised with how croaky her voice sounded. 

She took the cloth and one of the water containers to the stream, then rinsed the rag and filled the bottle with fresh water. Her heart flailed wildly in her chest, her cheeks burned, and she couldn’t help the bright smile that parted her lips when she returned to his bedside. 

“You have to drink,” she said, replacing the cloth on his forehead and sliding her hand under his head to lift him up. “You must be dehydrated after losing so much blood.” She wasn’t sure if that’s how it worked, even for humans and more so for Loki, but it made sense, logically. And the fact that he slept for like three Earth days straight couldn’t have helped the issue. 

He didn’t argue nor he tried to push her away. Not at first and nowhere through the whole painstakingly slow process. She was glad he accepted help without questioning it, but it made her uneasy too. It was not a Loki thing to do, if he were feeling any better, he would have argued with her, every single inch of the way.

He went through two containers and a good part of the third before he shook his head faintly, signaling that he was done for now. His hand rode up to fumble with the cloth again.

“No, leave it on, please,” she said. “You’re running a fever. This helps.”

Maybe it didn’t, but at least it couldn’t make things any worse. And his skin seemed a bit colder now. Still not back to normal, but better. 

“And welcome back, by the way,” she said and squeezed his hand reassuringly. She almost broke down crying again when he returned the gesture. 


	24. Turning tides

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the Chekhov's gun is loaded, primed and fired immediately and things turns out to not be the way they seemed.

It took another full day of rest before Loki could sit up on his own and another two before he was ready to venture outside without her assistance. His stance was still unsteady, and he still slept through most of it.

After that first day and night, after she made sure he wouldn’t die in his sleep, she spent most of the downtime on meditation. She made some headway in exploring the powers on her own and could now pull forth the idea of her core at will, both in her inner place and when she focused enough in reality, but couldn’t make it materialize, not like Loki did. Nor she could do anything with it other than just revel in its existence.

 _[There are a couple very easy spells you could try,]_ he said, after she reported her day’s progress to him.

“Like what?”

_[Drawing from an external source and redirecting the energy is usually the first step, but it will be problematic in our current situation, as it requires finding an external source first. There’s no one to guide you to find the cosmic faults, you are too inexperienced to do it on your own or use other, not as accessible energies in your surroundings.]_

Her brows furrowed. “Can you… explain that a bit more?”

_[Energy balance in the universe is a constant. It cannot be created from nothing nor destroyed. But it can be transformed. And it is all around us, if you know where to look. Heat of the sun, kinetic energy in the movement of the waves, the magnetic field of the planet, gravity, chemical reactions in the cells of the plants, the nuclear bonds in every atom of the universe. But tapping to it and using it, without damaging the world around you, without taking too much and making it unstable – it takes practice.]_

“Okay, so no power of the sun for me, at least for now. Got it. Anything else I can try?”

_[Low level healing is relatively easy and intuitive, especially healing yourself. After all, your body does that on its own, all you’re doing is encouraging it to go a bit faster.]_

“Low level? What does that mean?”

 _[There’s no exact definition, as the line is somewhat blurry, but generally anything that your body would heal naturally if given time requires only basic comprehension of energy redirection. You can get a bruise to fade by encouraging damaged blood vessels to mend faster, a small scratch or a cut like this,]_ he gestured at his eyebrow and she frowned at the reminder, _[would take two heartbeats to fix, same with a sprained ligament or a mild burn. The difficulty ramps up beyond that, requiring both more energy and more precise knowledge about body functions to not do more damage than good and only highly specialized and experienced mages can heal fatal injuries.]_

 _Like a broken spine._ ”That makes sense. I assume I can’t train on you, can I? Without triggering the spell, I mean?”

His expression turned thoughtful.

“Seriously, if you’re considering telling me ‘yeah, sure, let’s try and see what happens’ – I’m solemnly warning you – I’ll punch you before you get the first half of the sentence out.”

 _[We are back at punching?]_ he asked and one of his eyebrows rode up playfully.

“Oh, come on, you know what I mean.”

_[I do.]_

She smiled thinly. “I knew you can learn a thing or two as well, space boy,” she said and waited for an eyeroll, but it didn’t come. “Can I try on myself?”

_[To learn the motions and get a feel of it, yes, but without an external source you’d be only slushing the same life energy around. It can help on some occasions, like stopping your finger from bleeding if you cut it or healing a blister, but you must be very careful with more serious injuries, as you’d be effectively robbing your body of the energy it might need to finish the healing on its own. And the only alternative to that and cosmic faults you can’t yet access is the energy stored in external sources. And it’s not like there are many artifacts lying about here.]_

She gaped at him, realization widening her eyes. “Loki, we are a pair of irredeemable idiots!” she snarled and pushed her palms to her temples. She couldn’t believe she hadn’t thought of that earlier and, more so, that Loki didn’t either.

His eyebrows arched up. _[We are?]_

“The whole magic deal started with that fucking sphere! The connection, my dreams, everything! And we’ve been going _away_ from it, for weeks!”

Loki shrugged. _[I thought you figured that out already. Going back now wouldn’t change a thing. Even if you reignited your link with the spell, there’s not much you can do about it. You can only do that when you’re sure you’re ready, or else it can mean your demise.]_

She frowned, not sure what to make of his words. “We don’t have all the time in the world. We have to try now, before it’s too late!”

He just stared at her, for a long moment.

“What?”

He exhaled a drawn-out sigh.

“Seriously, what is it?”

He set his shoulders and tipped his chin up, looking her dead in the eye. _[It’s already too late for me. It was too late for me since the very beginning. But not for you.]_

She stared at him, her reaction changing from surprise to confusion, and then, at the end, to outrage. “What?!”

_[No reason to get angry. I told you, the magic won’t work for me and I’m not going anywhere. It was your own idea to warp it as you did.]_

“What the fuck do you mean by that?”

_[Do you remember what I told you, the first time you asked about magic and how long it takes to learn it?]_

“It takes years…” she whispered.

_[That point still stands.]_

“Then what the hell we have been doing all this time?”

_[I’ve been teaching you everything I can.]_

“Why?!”

_[So you can build upon it and perhaps find your own way home, one day.]_

She gaped at him, barely aware of the tears welling up in her eyes. “You can’t be serious…” she squeezed through her tightened throat. The pressure in her chest was a living, squirming thing, threatening to crush her.

_[I am.]_

She couldn’t bear looking at him anymore. At his gaunt, pale face, the solemn, worried lines on it, his bright, shiny eyes fixed on her, at the unwavering surety in his gestures. She turned away and curled up, hugging her knees and hiding her face. How could he lie to her like that…

Only he didn’t, did he? He told her all she needed to know to get the conclusion and it was just her wishful thinking that filled in the gaps the wrong way. She wanted to help him, be the one to save the day, be the hero he needed, and she fixated on the idea so much she didn’t even stop to wonder if that’s even possible. It all made so much sense now.

She sniffled and rubbed her eyes, not trying to hide it. He saw her crying before and now all the pretenses were off anyway.

She wanted to ask why he wanted to help her even if there was nothing in it for him. But she knew the answer and she knew that seeing him spell it out would make it worse.

“You can’t expect me to just forsake you and go on, on my merry way. I need to try,” she said numbly. “You should know that.”

_[That’s too risky. You are not ready.]_

“It doesn’t matter!”

_[This might be your only shot at ever going back home. Would you really want to waste it on such a faint chance?]_

“Yes! You think you’re the only one who can make sacrifices for the greater purpose?! There are more important things than staying alive!” she cried out and forced herself to stop and take a breath, then added, a lot more calmly, “I don’t want to live the rest of my life knowing I didn’t do everything in my power to...” She let the words die down without letting them out and bit her lower lip to stop it from trembling.

He regarded her, worry pulling his eyebrows up and snatching the focus from his eyes. _[That’s why I didn’t tell you.]_

“You had no right to hide it from me,” she said, but she couldn’t muster enough anger to put accusation in her voice, nor reproach. “You knew I’d find out sooner or later.”

_[Yes.]_

“But you never bothered to correct my misguided assumptions.”

 _[I’m selfish. I wanted this…]_ He drew a broad circle with his arms. _[To continue as long as it could.]_

She blinked.

_[You make me feel… normal. Like there’s nothing wrong with me. Like there’s still some place for me to belong to. Like I’m not a monster living on a borrowed time.]_

“You are not a monster, Loki.”

He wheezed out a laugh and averted his gaze.

“I know my words can’t do much, if they have to stand against the lies you’ve been told, year, after year, after year, for your entire life. I know it all fits the picture that’s been etched in your mind for so long too flawlessly. ‘I’ve done horrible things and I had horrible things done to me because I’m a monster’ is the best way to explain everything, right? So you keep on clinging to that, because it sounds right in your head. Because it makes sense. You ended up on that horrid moon in the Other’s clutches because you deserved it. Odin had the right to muzzle you like a rabid beast, strip you off your power and words and leave you out here to die because doing that to a monster is perfectly justified and reasonable.

“But it’s not. You’re not. And… I don’t know what else I can say to convince you if I have to stand against your whole worldview. But… I’ve seen you. I’ve seen the _real_ you, the person who prefers the harsh truth over a beautiful lie. So, maybe it’s time for you to stop bashing your head against that wall and understand it’s not there. You are what you are and it’s only your choice that stands between you and the rest of your life. Not the entirety of the golden realm unsullied, not the wise, just king Odin, not the brave hero Thor. Those are just unrealistic ideas that you’ve been forced to believe and clinging to them against all odds won’t make it all any more real.”

He shook his head without looking at her.

“I’ve seen real monsters, hidden behind smug smiles and fancy suits, behind the shields of rules and laws, all rotten inside, capable of the vilest acts for the sake of personal gain or convenience, drawing pleasure from hurting others. And it’s not you, because it is not what you’re born as what makes you a monster, it is what you _do_ with it.”

_[Like that makes it better? You’ve witnessed my actions.]_

“I’ve witnessed actions of a desperate man who had no other options, even if I couldn’t recognize it for what it was right away. Tell me, how many of those thousands that died during the invasion did you kill just for the sake of killing? Not because you were against a wall and had to take a life or be killed, not because it served the purpose the staff imposed on you, not because of an accident or collateral damage or because you couldn’t really control the swarm?”

_[I don’t see how…]_

“So I’ve thought. The answer is zero, am I right?”

Loki shrugged.

“Do you want to know how I know? I’ve been there. I’ve been the one to hold the blade, more times than I can even recall. I know how murderous intent tastes like, the twisted craving for blood, the urge, the cruel pleasure drawn from it. The overbearing surge of power you feel when you take a life, the one that glints in your mind and fills your veins with liquid fire.

“I can recognize when it’s not there, too. And I’ve seen you. You’re not some psychopath without a conscience or remorse. You kill for the bare utility of it, not because you enjoy taking a life. I can’t even say that about myself.”

_[What makes you so sure?]_

Her fingers snatched to her neck, where the half-healed bruise in the shape of his fingers still felt tender.

_[How is me hurting you a proof in my defense?]_

“I attacked you. And you could’ve killed me, right then and there. Yet you did not.”

_[That’s not a great consolation.]_

“It is, for me. I’ve seen into your mind, remember? That one single glance almost drowned me. But you persisted and came out stronger on the other end.”

_[Stronger? I can’t close my eyes without being haunted by my failures, so vivid I can’t even control my reactions.]_

“If you couldn’t, I would be dead. That first time, in the dark, or later. But I’m not. The things you’ve been through would destroy any lesser man, reduce them to nothing. Not you. The nightmares, the memories that haunt you – they are obstacles, things to work through and that takes time. But you’re not broken, not beyond saving. You’re tough and smart and patient and thoughtful. And sure, you make mistakes, and you are capable of deeds both virtuous and wicked. It doesn’t make you a monster. It makes you a person.”

_[It doesn’t matter.]_

“It does. Of course it does. Because you’re trying to make this a transaction. Trading your life for mine, as if mine was worth all that more. Like you were beyond redemption and I was any less of a fuckup. Like I didn’t have my own nightmares and dark memories haunting me. Like I could only do good and make moral decisions. Like there was some great destiny I still needed to fulfill. And that’s simply not true. The world wouldn’t change, whether I died here or lived through and went back to Earth in the end, somehow. There’s no one whose life would change for the better because I’m back. And if I don’t? Clint will miss me, but we are in this field of work for too long to have any delusions and he is used to losing people. He will be fine in the end. Fury will have to headhunt for a new field agent. The shop at the street corner will lose one customer and my landlord will have to find a new tenant. And that’s about it. There’s no one who would cry for me, whether I lived or died.”

_[Well, that we do have in common.]_

“That’s not true.”

He cocked his head at an angle and his eyebrows rode up then he shook his head. _[Who? Thor? He will claim to have mourned me, of course. He did, in fact, claim it already. Yet the sentiment didn’t show in his actions. Or do you mean Thor’s friends perchance? Because you can’t honestly mean Odin, right? Or my…]_ He hung down his head and his shoulders slumped, his fingers fiddling with the chain.

“Me. I mean me.”

He looked up at her for a second and the combination of disbelief and hope in his gaze made her heart lurch.

“I… You are my friend, Loki. We might have met a couple weeks ago yet I can hardly imagine the time when I didn’t know you. I might sound childish, but I feel like… Like all this was always supposed to happen. Like we were brought together for some higher, universal reason. And maybe you think it’s stupid and inane, but it doesn’t change the fact that I do care about you. More than I care about myself. And I would miss you, more than anyone.”

He watched her with wide eyes for a moment before he recovered. _[You are deluded. I tricked you into listening to my whining. I told you stories because I knew it will make you despise me less. Whatever affinity you think you feel towards me, it is not real. It never was. I’m incapable of making friends.]_

She smiled. “If that’s what you need to think to be able to live with yourself – fine. But I don’t think it is. And you know, just as well as I do, that it’s all bullshit. No offence.”

_[It makes no difference either way. It’s all done and over now.]_

“Oh, no, this is far from being done. You are still alive and – as long as you are – I’m going to try to help you, help both of us, no matter how insignificant you’re going to tell me the chance is. And I’m going to need all the assistance you can give me. So cancel the self-pity party, because you have other, more important matters to attend.”

He shot her a tentative glance, before looking down at his hands again. Even now, he couldn’t accept the simple truth. _[You’re not leaving?]_

“What? Of course I’m not.”

_[Why?]_

“Have you not listened to a single word of what I just said?”

Loki shrugged dismissively. _[I’ve lied to you. I broke my promise.]_

“You didn’t. I cherrypicked what you told me to fit my version of reality. That one’s on me.”

 _[A lie by omission is still a lie,]_ he said, tossing her own words at her.

“Semantics. The point is, we are going back to that damned ball and I’m wizarding the fuck out of it, until it spills all it secrets.”

He gave her a dubious glance and she considered what else she could use to convince him.

The ground shook and a low rumble rolled in the distance.

“Well, that’s as inspired timing as I’ve ever seen,” she muttered when the shaking stopped, springing to her feet. “So, what, are you in or are you out?”

_[In.]_

“Peachy. Now let’s get the fuck out of this cave before the roof falls down on our heads.”

\---

They made it only a few steps from the cave’s entrance before the ground shook again, more fervently and much closer.

“I really hoped we are out of season for those,” she said as she gathered herself up from the ground and grabbed Loki’s hand to help him up as well. She eyed the sea, but the rocks of the cove obstructed the view. “You think another wave is overdue?”

_[It was close, so it’s not out of the question.]_

“That’s what I figured. So what, are you up to climb some rocks?”

_[Yes.]_

“I can’t say I missed it, but fine. Let’s go.”

\---

Loki was too tired for acrobatics and fifteen feet leaps, but he still made his way up the cliff with ample speed the traditional way, like it wasn’t just a couple of days ago that he almost died. He kept the words of protest to himself when she told him to go first though.

They almost reached the first shelf, two dozen feet up, before the next wave of tremors hit. Slow at first, it culminated with a powerful jolt. She huddled closer to the wall and gripped the jagged stone edge so tightly it bit into her palm and cut it open. Her feet lost traction but she managed to stay on the wall without crashing down.

Loki was caught between two grip points with only one hand still on the rock face to support his weight and he did not. She watched, in slow motion, as the stone crumbled, and his fingers lost purchase. He slid down a few feet, too far to the side for her to try to catch him. He managed to grab a hold of the wall again, but the momentum of the fall swung him towards the rock. A serrated protrusion jabbed into his ribs, tearing a yelp from his windpipe. His face contorted in pain and it served as enough of a distraction for him to lose balance and for his hand to slide off the grip. He fell and she could only watch as he crashed through the greenery at the base of the bluff, back first.

It took her a second to comprehend what just happened.

The fall tore a hole in the brush, and she could just barely make out his silhouette between the branches, all the way at the bottom of the cliff. “Loki!” she called. There was a rustle and he moved but didn’t get up. _Fuck_.

Climbing down was harder than going up, but it was too high to leap off the wall nor there was a safe place to land, so it would have to do, and she wasted no time before she started moving.

She wasn’t sure what made her stop after a few feet and look at the sea. Maybe it was something in the air or just her instinct.

The sea was retreating and there was already fifty yards of exposed seafloor visible.

“Ёб твою мать!” She bounced off, pushing herself away with her legs as hard as she could. She landed on all fours just barely missing a low, twisted tree, the branches scratching her exposed arm. She rolled, but the joints in her knees and ankles screamed at the abuse all the same.

“Loki!” she yelled again.

There was a rustle and some rattling and she waded through the brushes, the sharp leaves and brambles slashing her face and arms. She moved the last branch with so much force it broke away.

Loki was lying on the ground, propping himself up with one elbow, his other arm clutching the side of his abdomen, as blood seeped between his fingers. She fell to her knees. He moved his hand away, revealing an oozing wound and an-inch-thick piece of a branch still stuck in it.

“No, put your hand back on and keep pressing on it,” she ordered, unzipped her uniform and took off her shirt. It was already stained with Loki’s blood. He shifted with a pained sigh, the piece of wood grating inside the wound, still attached to the rest of the branch that impaled him. Before she could stop him, he pulled himself up in one decisive move and squeezed his eyes shut as he stifled a moan. The splinter dislodged and blood gushed from the entry wound on his back, splashing on the layer of rotten leaves on the ground.

 _Fuck._ “Shirt up.”

He followed the order, gingerly, still trying to apply pressure like she told him, even if it appeared quite useless at this point. She tore the cloth in her hand, helping herself with her teeth, trying to keep it as one consecutive strip. 

“Hand off,” she urged, and he pulled his hand away. She pressed a folded piece of fabric to his stomach (“Hand back on,”) then felt her way to the gaping hole in his back and put another bundle there and started wrapping the rest of the makeshift bandage around his torso. She didn’t even get to one full lap before blood welled out and soaked through the dressing. One more and she ran out of material. She uttered another curse, in Mandarin this time.

She starting to take the uniform all the way off, but it got caught on her belt and she fumbled to undo it first, when Loki’s hand on her forearm stopped her. Then he tugged at the collar of his own shirt.

Yeah, that would be much easier.

She helped him take it off and tried tearing it, but the fabric was a solid Asgardian craftmanship and it refused to come apart easily.

“Knife,” she demanded. Loki handed her the blade and she pretended to not notice how his hand trembled when he did.

She slashed the tunic to strips. Even with a knife it took some effort, the material was thin but not nearly as easy to cut as the soft cotton of her undershirt, especially in a hurry. It wouldn’t be perfect for dressing wounds, but it would have to suffice. She wrapped the salvaged fabric around Loki’s midsection, until she could see no more blood soak through, even if she couldn’t be sure if it was because she managed to patch it up or just because it didn’t show up on the gray material.

“This will have to do for now,” she said and sprung to her feet. “I’m sorry, but you have to get up. We must go. A wave is coming.”

Loki’s eyes went wide, and she grabbed his arm to help him to his feet. He managed to stand up with her assistance but then stumbled and almost came down again when he put his weight on his right leg. A quick glance was enough to reveal his ankle was bruised and was swelling rapidly.

“Fuck!”

_[I can walk if you…]_

She didn’t wait for him to finish, just pulled his arm over her shoulder and grabbed his bandaged waist.

They covered maybe ten steps before they ran out of time. She heard the rush of water. It sounded differently than the last time, but she didn’t want to turn to check. “The tree!” She hit into a strut, pulling Loki along and ignoring the pained hisses he made with each step. She could despair about causing him pain later all she wanted. If they survived.

Cold water hit the back of her knees. She stumbled forward and grabbed onto a trunk, before the swelling wave managed to sweep her off her feet. Loki’s arm slid off her shoulder and closed around the tree as well. The water kept on rising. It was reaching to her shoulders soon, threatening to carry her away.

“Up!” She yelled and grabbed a low hanging branch.

Something hit her side, right where her liver was, awfully unprotected. The impact was strong enough to knock breath out of her and fill her vision with dark spots. Her fingers slipped off and the current tugged her away from the relative safety of the tree. She saw Loki’s arm in the corner of her eye. He tried to grab her but missed. His moves were uncharacteristically uncoordinated.

Another half-submerged log struck her over the neck, sending her underwater.

She tumbled. The current was too strong to fight against. Something hit her stomach. A trunk. She grabbed onto it and pulled herself closer. She struggled to keep her grip against the rush of water trying to wrench her away, up and up, until her head got above the turbid water. She hugged the flimsy tree, wrapping her thighs and arms around it.

The trunk wasn’t thicker than her forearm. It creaked dully under her weight.

Then it snapped and fell straight at her, dragging her down along with it. She held on and pushed her head above the surface. Branches scratched her face. The other end of the floating trunk hit some obstacle. The impact knocked her off and tossed her against a boulder. It rammed into her ribs and – as she opened her lips to let out a yelp of pain – the current yanked her back down.

Roiling water filled her mouth and throat.

She tried spluttering it out, but there was no air to fill her airways, only the overwhelming barrage of dark, angry water, dragging her further and further, throwing her body against one obstacle after another. Her fingers were too slow to hold onto anything and her lungs screamed for air.

She was tossed against another tree. The coarse bark scoured skin off her back.

Then she stopped, or rather was stopped, her arm trapped awkwardly between bark and her chest. Her back still bore the full onslaught of the torrent. She felt bones in her forearm give way, even if she could barely register it. Her other arm flailed around blindly. To her surprise, it found a purchase and her fingers curled around a branch. She held onto it as firmly as she could and dragged herself up with the last of her strength.

Her head emerged out of the water. She spluttered and coughed, gasping for air.

The wave was slowing down now, running out of energy as it crashed through the landscape. Natasha carefully switched grips from the branch and onto the trunk then hugged it closely.

The first shock wore off and the sticky tendril of pain sneaked up from her broken arm and into her shoulders and neck and she bit the inside of her cheek to keep herself from focusing on it too much. She would worry about it later.

She looked around, but couldn’t see Loki anywhere, the realization setting up a wailing alarm in her head that no amount of rationalizing could silence. She was carried a good hundred yards inland and he stayed at the edge, by that first tree. If he was lucky enough. And conscious enough, despite the blood loss.

She fought the instinct to call out to him. If he couldn’t hear her it wouldn’t change a thing, and if he could, he might mistake her call for a scream for help, prompting him to leave a safe spot unnecessarily.

It didn’t stop her from worrying.

The current slowed down further and then started retreating. That posed it own set of problems. Getting caught in it now could mean getting carried away and off into an open sea. If that happened, she wouldn’t be able to swim back with a broken arm, even if she miraculously didn’t drown in the process.

The tree bark was prickling her skin and only now she remembered she is half-naked; she got no chance to pull the suit back on her upper body after she patched Loki up.

She hoped she succeeded to stop the bleeding, because if she didn’t…

_No, Natasha, you know how to dress wounds, you did it countless times, for yourself and for others._

Water level fell by another two feet and she was now only submerged up to her waist. She shifted her grip and slid a bit down the tree for it, her trembling legs unable to hold her weight. She wrapped her arm closer around the trunk, squeezing her other arm between her chest and the bark. Another wave of agony shot through it. That wasn’t good news, she kind of needed both hands and she was going to be even more useless without her dominant one.

She was in no position to do anything with it anyway, were it assessing the damage or putting it in a splint, even if she knew how to do it one-handed, so for now she settled on not moving it at all.

She climbed off the tree. The water has recessed further and was now reaching only a bit above the knee. The ground was slippery and the current still strong enough to bring her down if she lost her balance. She shouldn’t leave the sturdy support of the tree yet if she wanted to be on the safer side.

There were more important matters to attend to. She started wading towards the beach again.

The assorted plants in the forest bed were licked flat by the wave, save for the sturdiest brushes, that only got their leaves smushed, there were also broken branches and loose tree limbs hanging from the trees, but that’s about it. The landscape was well prepared for such events and there would be no sign anything has ever happened just in a matter of days.

Too bad she couldn’t say the same about herself.

She felt her arm for damage and soon found a bone jutting out at a very undesirable angle, just under the skin of her forearm. She couldn’t tell which one got broken (maybe both) and whether she would be able to set them on her own (she probably wouldn’t, given the angle and how she stumbled and almost blacked out just from gentle prodding), so she decided to leave it for later.

Water was gone now if one didn’t count the murky puddles and pools it left behind in terrain indentations. She started running, and every footfall sent a wave of pain through her shoulder and slushed in her boots.

She found Loki soon enough. He didn’t move from that first tree. And just laying eyes on him explained why.

He was sitting with his back against the tree with his head down and his left arm trapped up. He must’ve looped the chain around a branch to avoid getting carried away by the current and now was too tired – or too unconscious – to get up and release it.

Wet hair fell over his face, water dripping onto his bare chest and bandaged torso, mixing with blood seeping through the wrap. _Fuck_.

She fell to her knees.

“Loki?”

He didn’t react, so she pushed his chin up gently. He looked at her through half-closed eyelids and his eyes were bleary and unfocused, conscious but not all that lucid, and – when she took her hand away – his head drooped again. His trapped hand was the only reason he didn’t collapse all the way to the ground.

She pulled a piece of the dressing away to assess the severity of the bleeding and replaced it immediately, as blood gushed forth the moment she did.

 _Fuck_.

His position wasn’t doing anything good for the wound either. She rose to snap the branch, but it was too thick, and she could only use one arm. She awkwardly reached for the knife she knew for sure she stashed into the right pocket of her belt. It wasn’t there. She must’ve dropped it or it simply came loose when the wave tossed her around. _Well, shit._

She went at the branch again and it took balancing her entire weight on it before it broke. Loki slumped forward and she caught him the last possible moment before he landed face first in the mud.

“Come on, you’ve got to help me a bit, I have only one functional arm at the moment,” she said to a very little reaction, other than a pained grunt. “Please, don’t make it worse.” Loki was supposed to be indestructible…

She laid him down, as slowly and as gently as she could. The bandages were soaked though and so were his pants directly under the wound. He was losing too much blood, just a couple of days after he got knocked out cold for the very same reason. There was no way his body was able to replenish it in the meantime without any reserves and devoid of any form of sustenance. And she couldn’t stop the bleeding, the wound was too deep, and it wasn’t closing off on its own and even if she managed to sew it shut somehow, internal bleeding would be the end of him.

Loki looked up at her hazily, then slowly reached up and brushed her chin with the back of his shaky hand. It took him effort just to do that and, after a short while, he dropped his arm to his side, unable to hold it up anymore. A shiver ran through his frame. Every breath was shallower and more ragged than the other and all color drained from his face.

She saw it enough times before to know what it looked like.

_He is going to die._

She brushed a strand of hair away from his face and tugged it behind his ear. His eyelids fluttered.

“Loki. If you feel you must go, if this is the right time…” Her voice broke. She cleared her throat. “I’m not mad.” She traced the line above his eyebrow and settled on the wrinkle on his forehead, smoothing it out.

He trained his wide, bright eyes on her, like he could really _see_ her in a moment of clarity.

“But I would really, really appreciate if you stuck around for a little while longer.”

He slowly shook his head. His eyes closed, the breath rattled in his chest, his head fell backwards, and he stilled.

_No!_

She looked at him, lying there, motionless.

There was a though clattering at the back of her head and she couldn’t quite understand the meaning of it for a moment until it pierced the cacophony of her mind and shone like a single torch in the dark.

_Healing is intuitive._

She slid her hand under the bandage. His skin was inflamed and slick with water and blood.

_Even if you can do it, you will hurt him. He may die._

_He is dying anyway. I’ve got nothing to lose._

She closed her eyes and called forth her core. It shimmered under her eyelids, beautiful and scary and everything in between, a memory of days that haven’t happened yet. Then she directed it, ordered it along her arm and down to her fingertips, commanded it to knit burst vessels, put together severed tissue and mend damaged flesh.

And it obeyed. Sluggishly at first, a slight warmth crawled down her arm and tingled in her fingertips. Then it exploded, like a thousand stars bursting to life at the forefront of her mind, blinding her and surging through her body like a bolt of electricity, scorching her inside out. A laugh stuck in her throat. It was exhilarating, a wave of extasy and triumph and power crashing over her.

Her head spun and the red spots marred the brightness. Then the gravity shifted, the world fragmented into a million tiny pieces and disintegrated into darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Ёб твою мать" is a colourful Russian curse, literally meaning "fuck your mother" but used as an exclamation often in various situations. 
> 
> "Cука блять" would probably be more appropriate, but it's too overused by the gaming community,


	25. Thin air

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which cultural differences are discussed at length.

There were fingers in her hair.

That was the first thing she noticed. The rest wasn’t nearly as pleasant. Her head pulsed with every beat of her heart, threatening to burst, her ears were stuffed with cotton and every breath sent a surge of agony through her diaphragm and down to the pit of her twisted stomach.

She opened her eyes and immediately shut them again. The light hurt. Her every muscle, every tendon, every bone and every joint ached and trembled, like she was a taunt string set in motion. She rolled to the side and vomited violently. The same fingers held her head up and slowly lowered it when she emptied her stomach, bile stinging the sore spots in her mouth. An offering of water was pressed to her lips and she drank, long, greedy gulps and her raw throat spasmed with every single swallow.

It soon ran out and she moaned, unsure how to form words, unsure if she even knew any. There was a slush and a splash, and a new portion arrived, and she drank it too. Then another and only then the burning thirst started to slowly abate.

The light burned the insides of her eyelids and she tried to shy away from it but the muscles in her neck wouldn’t obey her, sending a storm of needles along her nerves. Then there was a cool wetness on her forehead and over her eyes and she sighed in relief.

The fingers found their way back to her hair, smoothing it. The arm under the nape of her neck shifted, slowly and methodically rocking her to sleep. Sleep was an alluring notion and she allowed it to claim her again.

\---

It was darker when she came to the next time and blurry flames danced in the corner of her vision and on the cave roof above her head.

“Ca..ah…” she tried, and her throat cracked like a scab on a joint.

Loki was at her side immediately. His fingers brushed her lips to silence her then he pressed a cup of water to her mouth.

Not a cup. A folded… leaf? That’s a curious utensil.

She still gulped it down.

“What… happened?” Her voice wasn’t more than a weak, wheezy croak but at least it worked.

Loki angled away, so she could better see his hands in the firelight. There were letters and words there, but she couldn’t make them out or put them into any coherent order.

She reached to touch his hand to let him know. Or rather tried to. The muscles of her upper arm protested, and the rest of her hand felt numb and stiff. Loki held it down _. [No,]_ he showed. That one, at least, she did recognize. Oh, right, her arm was broken not that long ago.

_[Rest.]_

Yeah, that seemed like a good suggestion.

\---

The sound of a crackling fire and something bubbling roused her from her slumber. She opened her eyes tentatively and – while it still hurt to do so – it wasn’t nearly as bad as it was before.

Loki was crouching by the fire with a stick, stirring something boiling in a… pot? Hmm. So, he _could_ make a better one after all.

“Heeey,” she said breathily. His eyes refocused on her right away and he sprung to his feet to offer her the leafy cup again.

She drank and then regarded him. The bandage was missing from his stomach and there was just a fresh, ugly scar where the wound used to be. She frowned. “Did I…”

_[Yes.]_

“But… how?” _I didn’t even know what I was doing._

He placed a finger against the muzzle. _[There will be time for talking later. You need to rest now.]_

“Why?”

_[It’s magical overexertion. You’ve spent too much of your energy.]_

She smiled. Maybe she did and maybe that’s why she felt like total shit right now. It was worth it.

And damn, she did magic! The actual kind!

“What’s that?” she asked and tipped her chin at the fire. That was pretty much the extent of motions available to her at the moment because _everything_ still kind of hurt.

Luckily, Loki understood. _[Tea.]_ He pulled up a bundle of assorted weeds out of the pot by the stems and showed it to her.

“Tea?”

_[A calming tea, yes. Should help you sleep and relieve some of the pain.]_

_Hmm_. There was some unnerving connotation to this… Wait, if there were such plants here and Loki could identify them, why the hell haven’t they used it before? Was it because it wouldn’t work for him, only for her? He was the one getting hurt most of the time, not her.

“Is it… safe?”

She felt stupid right away. She shouldn’t have allowed the question to tumble out like it did. Loki was making it for her, of course it was safe.

He didn’t seem offended though. _[Should be, in small doses. Some of the plants have hallucinogenic properties, but it will be mild at best in this concentration.]_

Maybe that’s why he didn’t want to use it before. That would make sense. She nodded and stayed silent until Loki finished boiling the concoction, covered the pot with a flat stone and put it aside to steep.

“Are _you_ okay?” she whispered when he approached her to check the wraps on her arm, completely unprompted.

 _[Yes.]_ His fingers ran over the scar idly.

“And the spell?”

_[It uses my own energy to punish me and there wasn’t much of it left. It fired, but I was unconscious, so I got spared most of it.]_

Most, but not all. “I’m sorry.”

 _[You saved my life and almost died for it.]_ He paused, as if considering what to say next. _[It was unwise and dangerous.]_

She chuckled and rolled her eyes at him. She also thought about adding a shrug to the reaction but decided against it. “You’re welcome?” she rasped. _A couple more of those and we might be even._

 _[You really should consider talking less,]_ he said then scooped some of the tea onto the cup, waved off the steam and pushed it to her lips. She drank. It had a bitter, herbal taste but nothing too awful and the way it warmed her insides when she swallowed was quite pleasant. 

He adjusted the bundle of straw under her head and sat close, folding his legs, like always. Then he watched her with a weird look on his face.

 _What is it_ , Natasha wanted to ask but the cozy, silky feeling radiating from her stomach stopped her and she felt too comfortable to move her jaw. She just met his eyes, as gargantuan as the task might seem and let a lazy smile pull the corners of her lips up.

 _[There are beings in the universe,]_ he started, _[with a natural affinity for magic, able to understand it on an instinctual basis. Races that evolved bound with it, that have the tendrils of power wrapped in their very cells and for whom reaching for it is as natural as breathing is for us.]_ His gestures were slow and broad and pointed, like he was talking to a child. Natasha was grateful, she could catch most of it like that. _[But mortals are not one. Neither are the Aesir. Even those with unique gifts – like Thor with his lighting or Heimdall with his sight – needed to explore it first, just like I wouldn’t be able to use the innate ice magic without learning about it, whether it’s there or not. What you did… that healing spell you cast; it should simply be impossible. You never learned it; you haven’t learned anything but the bare concept behind it. Yet you did it. And I don’t understand how.]_

“I’m awesome?” Her words were tired and slurry, stumbling as they left her mouth. The world had obtained a mysterious, pinkish gleam and grew fuzzy at the edges.

 _[Quite possibly,]_ he said. _[Sleep now, we will talk later.]_

She did.

\---

There was food the next time she woke up and she allowed Loki to hold her head up and feed her pieces of fish meat and cooked roots as she lay there gracelessly. She managed to stop herself from licking his fingers at least, that would be highly inappropriate, even if the thought made her giggle inside. And outside, just a bit, earning her a sideway glare. 

“Wait, more funky tea?” she asked, as he presented her with another, freshly made cup. “It got me high as a kite the last time. Not that I complain, but is that… medically advised?”

He put the container down. _[It is. You need rest to let your body replenish your reserves.]_

“I can rest without drugs,” she said carefully, although she wasn’t so sure. The ache that the herbs knocked down to a dull background itch was back and it didn’t make her feel all that peachy. Maybe she did need it to take the edge off. “But okay.”

He gave her an approving nod, apparently contented that she got to that conclusion without having to be coaxed, then pushed the cup to her lips. The sensation wasn’t as strong this time, but it still made her feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Whatever the active ingredient in the tea was, they could make a fortune bottling and selling it on Earth.

“Thanks,” she muttered, before she allowed the darkness to swallow her again, “for sticking around.”

\---

She caught Loki dozing off the next time she opened her eyes. He sat huddled up by her side, his arms wrapped around his legs and his head resting on his knees. It couldn’t be a comfortable position.

He looked tired but otherwise unharmed, the wound was fully closed, and his ankle showed no sign of swelling. Even the red lines the muzzle imprinted on his skin looked a bit less angry, so the hole in his side wasn’t the only injury affected. Was it really her… magic that did it, in some universal stroke of luck even Loki couldn’t explain? Not back then and more so now she had no idea what she did, only that he was dying, and she was desperate to stop it, everything after that happened without her conscious involvement.

There was a notion there, urging her to grasp it and let it bloom into a full conclusion, but she couldn’t quite wrap her mind around it, so she let it go for now. 

She wiggled her fingers. Left hand obeyed her smoothly enough, but her right still felt heavy and uncooperative. She propped herself up one elbow and then sat up, with her back against the wall, stifling a groan as her muscles protested and head swam at the sudden change of position.

Loki stirred and looked at her with reproach. His limbs unfurled into a more relaxed pose. _[You shouldn’t be up.]_

“Boo-hoo, like that ever stopped _you_ before,” she wheezed and tried for a chuckle, but it only sent her into a fit of dry cough. Loki offered her the cup when it subsided. She drank a bit, then studied the container. It was a single leathery leaf, folded in a way to create a seamless, well, cup. Quite an ingenious little work of craftmanship. She handed it back. “Thanks,” she said, then pointed to her bandaged arm. “For that as well.” From the looks of it, it was wrapped in multiple layers of cloth, most likely the exact same pieces she used on Loki’s wound before, because where else could he get it from? There was also something that felt like flat pieces of wood or bark woven into the wrap, stiffening it and making it serve better as a splint. Seriously, was there anything he didn’t know how to do?

“You did set the bone, right?”

_[Yes.]_

_Of course._ She was just glad she wasn’t conscious for the process.

“So, what now?”

_[You still need to rest.]_

“Yeah, probably, but I can’t rest forever and staying in one place will only make it worse in the long run. I can walk… I think. Can you?” He seemed fine, but he also almost died not that long ago, so it wasn’t that much of a stretch to ask.

_[I can.]_

“You do look better.”

_[Your magic healed more than the damage from the fall. It didn’t just save me, it also bought me a few extra days, at least.]_

A few extra days. Because that was the timeline they operated upon. _Right._ “I can always do it again.”

_[Can you, though?]_

“Well, I have no idea,” she admitted, “because – in case you haven’t figured it out yet – I don’t understand what happened and how exactly I did what I did. If you can’t explain how it’s even possible, how can I be sure of anything about it?”

_[I’ve been thinking about it. Involuntary, subconscious use of one’s powers is not without… precedence. Your core is just as much a part of you as your physical organs, and as such can be affected by your self-preservation instincts. I’ve had my magic protect me in danger before, that’s most likely how I survived the Void as well. It was always magic I was already familiar with but extrapolating it to yet unexplored aspects wouldn’t put it that far outside the field of possibility.]_

“That solves it then.”

_[Not at all. Quite to the contrary. Your magic didn’t fire to save you, it almost killed you to save… another. This is not how survival instinct should work. If your magic did it without your involvement, it means it’s faulty.]_

She smiled weakly. “I wouldn’t say it was _completely_ without my involvement. I wanted to do it; I just didn’t know how. I willed it to work and it did. And if my magic likes you more than it likes me, well, I’m not that surprised.” _I kind of like you more than I like myself just as well._

Loki furrowed his brows. _[You should have heeded my warning about overspending your energy. It was reckless and dangerous.]_

“And what? Let you die?”

_[Yes.]_

“Oh, fuck off, seriously. Can’t you just listen to what I say this one time?

_[Like what? Like what you told me about how I can’t treat this like a transaction? That I shouldn’t trade one life for another? Isn’t it exactly what you were trying to do?]_

“It’s different…”

_[How?]_

She hesitated.

_[I’ll tell you how it’s different. If you died, you’d be forfeiting two lives, not just one.]_

There was some truth to that, as much as she didn’t like him twisting it this way. “But I didn’t, and we are both fine. That was one of the possible outcomes and it worked.”

_[You must promise me you’ll never do it again, no matter what happens.]_

“I can’t.”

_[Then it’s time for us to part ways.]_

“What?!” she exclaimed. Her voice creaked and sent her into another bout of coughs. She accepted the cup from Loki’s hand. Water helped. “You can’t be serious.”

_[I’m obviously a bad influence.]_

She could only laugh at that. “Stop it. It’s not funny.”

_[I’m not in a mood to amuse, trust me.]_

“I do. I trust you. With my life.”

His eyes narrowed to slits.

“I do. And you would know if you listened. The question is, why don’t _you_ trust _me_?”

His hands started up but froze mid-motion. He held them up without committing to a sign. His eyes narrowed and dashed away from her face and onto the distance beyond the cave’s entrance. Anger and resolution faded away, replaced with hesitation. He went through his mind, emotion after emotion left unsaid that still showed up on his face, each and every single one making her hold her breath, until he reached a conclusion.

_[I do.]_

It shouldn’t be that hard to admit, should it? Then again, it was Loki, and it was obvious he hasn’t trusted anyone in a long time and that the very confession was more of a surprise to him than it was for her. She kind of knew that already, after all.

“Then why won’t you trust my decisions?”

He shrugged. _[Perhaps I should.]_

It was a small admission and a huge breakthrough at the same time. “That’s my space boy,” she said with a smile and only barely stopped herself from reaching out and ruffling his hair. She squeezed his hand instead and he huffed out in indignation. “Now that we got it out of the way, can you help me up? As much as I’d love to sit and discuss whose existence is more useless, the nature is calling.”

\---

They hit the road in the afternoon. Well, “hitting” was not a proper word, as she could barely hold herself upright and had to rely on Loki’s support with every step, but they did leave the cave, at least.

It felt wrong, going the other way. Like every step undid a bit of the progress they’ve made so far, invalidated a bit of effort and she couldn’t quite push the thought away, no matter how hard she tried.

They kept on walking until the disk of the sun touched the horizon and she could still see the outline of the rocky cliffs when she looked back, meaning they couldn’t have covered more than a few miles. Her muscles already screamed in protest and demanded rest. She gritted her teeth and put one foot in front of the other. She rested long enough. Too long. Now was time for action.

 _[We should stop for the night,]_ Loki said.

“I could go on for a little while longer.”

_[Perhaps, but you shouldn’t push yourself if you want to be able to go on in the morrow. I could use some rest too.]_

That settled it.

\---

Loki had to light the fire the old-fashioned way, the last two batteries from the second pack she still carried in her belt were fried and she schooled her expression when he tossed them far into the sea in a fit of frustration. The planet was dead anyway.

“Hey, have you ever fired a gun?” she asked, unbuckling the belt and pulling out one of her pistols. She haven’t cleaned them or in fact paid them much attention pretty much since the day they’ve arrived on the moon, when she still considered she would have to use them against Loki. That seemed like an absurd notion now.

_[Like those or in general?]_

“Both?”

_[Weapons that fire physical projectiles are considered a relict, even in technology-based civilizations. Energy guns are a lot more common; they can be charged with most kinds of power and don’t require specific ammunition.]_

“Is that a ‘no’?”

_[I suppose.]_

“Want to try?”

_[I guess. Why?]_

“Don’t know, I just feel like shooting something.” She shrugged her good shoulder and felt a pang of guilt even before the motion was done. She didn’t want to talk about it but making it a secret would invalidate the meaning of it. “No, sorry, that was a lie. I exactly know why. I keep on coming back to that thought that if all goes to shit, if we fail – if _I_ fail – I can always end it with a single bullet. And I don’t want that… temptation anymore.”

Loki nodded. She had a hunch he would understand. _[What changed?]_

“You almost dying – twice… or is it three times at this point? It made me realize the perspective is not just some farfetched, worst case scenario. It can happen. You’ve been doing everything you can to help me since the very start and I owe it to you to try, even if we don’t… succeed. Even if I cannot save us both.”

_[When you say ‘shoot something’, do you have anything specific in mind?]_

\---

_[It’s awfully complicated for a fun activity.]_

“You’re missing the point. It’s not supposed to be fun. It’s a game, which means it’s serious business. Admit it, you’re just afraid you’re going to lose.”

_[It’s the first time I’ll be shooting one of those, so I don’t see how it’s supposed to be fair.]_

“And my dominant arm is broken, so I’d say it evens out our chances. Now stop whining and mark the targets like I told you.”

Loki made a face but carried on with placing leaves of various sizes against a fallen log on the edge of the beach, putting a show of exaggerated irritation each time she shouted directions from the distance. “Get the small red one a bit higher! That’s the twenty-point mark, we can’t have it hanging next to fives!”

\---

“No, your pinkie should go like this,” she said and wiggled her finger on the hilt of the pistol. Loki adjusted the grip. “Also, watch out for recoil, it’s quite…”

The rest of the sentence was drowned by gunshots, as Loki raised the firearm and fired it without any hesitation. First shot flew above the log. He quickly adjusted the aim and fired again. That one landed just a bit above the smallest target, a flurry of splinters exploding from the log. He fired the rest of the bullets in rapid succession and every single one hit the wood.

“You told me you never fired a gun before,” she said as she handed him a replacement magazine. It took Loki but a second to find the release latch and another one to insert the new cartridge and slide the lock lever. This was the whole of a second time he ever did it and she would never have guessed if she weren’t the one to show him how it’s done. 

He decocked the safety lever and stashed the pistol behind his belt. _[No, I told you I never fired one like this, there’s a difference.]_

She approached the log and assessed the outcome.

“Well, damn,” she said. Most bullets hit the smallest leaf, ripping it to shreds and the furthest hole was just five or so inches off. “That’s some spectacular aim for someone without much experience.”

 _[I did use projectile weapons before, you know. I had quite some practice with throwing knives and archery as well. I can hit a moving target with a dagger from two hundred paces.]_ A boastful smirk flashed across his features before it quickly fizzled out. _[Not that it ever earned me any credit with my arms tutors.]_

“Really? Why?”

_[Ranged weapons are hardly worthy of a true warrior, more suited for those who cannot hope to hold their ground in a fair, close combat fight. A woman’s trick, inappropriate for a man, more so a prince. Almost like magic.]_

“That’s bullshit. An advantage is an advantage,” she grunted. “You know that, right?”

Loki shrugged.

She frowned. “Wait, isn’t Odin like the most powerful mage in all of Asgard and so on?”

_[Probably. He is also a king and thus above any rule or law. And he always acts like it is such a burden…]_

“Riiiight,” she uttered. She replaced the destroyed mark with a new leaf and started walking back towards the start line. “They really gave you shit for being a mage?”

_[Not to my face. Most of the time. I used to be a prince, after all.]_

“I officially give up trying to understand Asgard.”

Loki huffed out a small laugh. _[You’d ruffle a lot of feathers there with your… attitude, that’s for sure.]_

“Yeah, I got that feeling,” she smirked, and the smile turned sour right away. “Why didn’t you leave?”

_[What?]_

“Why didn’t you leave Asgard? Like, for good? They didn’t respect you, Odin’s a massive dick and you could go anywhere you wanted. Yet you stayed, all those years. Why?”

_[And where was I supposed to go?]_

“I don’t know. Anywhere? Earth, for once. You look like us, you could stay anonymous if you didn’t want to make yourself known. I bet there are other places where your skillset is highly sought after too.”

_[And what? Be nobody?]_

That put her on a pause. “Ugh, and what’s wrong with that?” She aimed and shot a single bullet. “You don’t have to stand above everyone else to have a good life.”

He crooked his head and eyed her dubiously.

“I’m serious.” Another shot. “What being on a pedestal your whole life ever did for you, except putting more obstacles in your way?”

Doubt shifted into consideration on his face and his eyes narrowed. _[I don’t… I have no idea how to be anything else. I was never taught a profession, never learned anything useful.]_

She shot another bullet. “Are you for real? You know every single language in existence, there’s like a couple dozen potential occupations you’d excel in with just that. Not to mention your fighting prowess, all the arcane skills and your indecently big brain. Agencies would foam at the mouth at the very thought of recruiting you.”

_[So I could risk my life for others and follow orders blindly?]_

_How is it any different to what you’ve been doing so far?_ She sighed. “Sheesh, that was just an example. That’s what I’ve been doing my entire life so it’s kind of the first thing that comes to mind, you know?”

 _[What would_ you _do if you were not a soldier?]_

“I… I have no idea,” she admitted and fired. “I’d probably write a memoir and live off the royalties. I’d have to learn how to do it first. Or hire a ghost writer. Someone with a good stomach, to not faint on the more gruesome details.” She shot the last couple of bullets, quickly pulling the trigger time after time. Her arm was getting tired. Some of the projectiles missed the log, raising a cloud of disturbed sand. “Shit.” She glowered at Loki, but it didn’t quite manage to wipe the smug grin off his face.

_[And your bosses?]_

“What about them?”

_[Wouldn’t revealing their secrets put you in danger?]_

“Yeah, it would. But I don’t give a fuck anymore. I know how to hide my tracks.”

_[You make it sound like you’ve already decided.]_

“Hell yeah, I’m decided.” She released the empty magazine and attempted to insert a new one, which was a tricky thing to do with one hand. Loki traced her fumbling but – luckily for him – he didn’t offer to help. She was not completely useless just because her arm was broken. “I’m done being someone else’s attack dog.”

 _[You won’t go back to working with SHIELD_ _if you make it back to Earth?]_

“No way. Fuck them.” She held the pistol between her knees and inserted the new clip.

Loki crooked his head. _[What about the Avengers.]_

“I’m barely one.”

_[But you are.]_

“It’s an initiative with a governmental oversight. I’m done with those. Besides, I feel like that was a one-time thing, and even that didn’t go all that smoothly. We were only able to work together because you put us against a wall. Banner was already back to hiding come next morning and Stark refused to help SHIELD with their… interrogation attempt, so I don’t predict that bright of a future for it.”

_[Perhaps he didn’t want to be around me. I’d say that’s a wise choice.]_

“Nah. Stark’s a decent person. Presumably not that big on torture, judging from his past. I should’ve said ‘no’ too.”

_[We wouldn’t…]_

“Yeah, I know, I know, we wouldn’t end up here. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad I was there and could be of use, but I still hate the idea and I hate it even more than I allowed that slimy cockroach of a CO to force me to be a part of it. The outcome doesn’t negate the intent.”

_[I was your enemy.]_

“You were not. You just acted like one and no one was that interested to listen to your side of the story, myself included. They told me what to do and I did it. It used to be enough for me. But not anymore. I’m done hurting people on someone’s else order. I’ve done enough damage as is.”

_[You’re serious about this.]_

“Yes. I’m not sure how it’s for you, but for me getting stuck on an alien planet is quite a lifechanging experience.”

_[Wouldn’t you miss being a spy?]_

“Some aspects of it, maybe. But… I’ve never had a normal life. I rarely thought I wanted one. But maybe I do?”

Loki chuckled.

“What?”

_[I’m having a hard time imagining you as a housewife.]_

“Shut up. Besides, who said that’s the only alternative to being a killing machine? Like, there’s a middle ground there. A whole lot of middle ground.”

He shrugged. _[Not in Asgard.]_

 _But of course._ “How so?”

_[You either forfeit your status as a woman by becoming a shieldmaiden or you fulfill your duty as a wife. There’s no other way.]_

“And if you don’t want to be either of those?”

_[You serve no purpose in the society.]_

“That’s even more bullshit than… most of the other stuff,” she muttered. “And what about a woman who wants to be a warrior and then wants to settle down and have a family.”

_[No respectable man would want a feisty wife.]_

She groaned. “Do you really believe that?”

_[I never thought about it. I always knew that if I’m ever to wed, it would be for political purposes. A union between the house of Odin and whoever the Council of Elders deemed the most beneficial ally for the continuous prosperity of Asgard.]_

“So, like an arranged marriage?”

_[Yes.]_

“And you were fine with that?!”

_[It wasn’t… an option. It was a duty. I was… grateful the subject didn’t come up all that often though. Not nearly as frequently as with Thor, at least. Now I know why, of course. It would be quite a scandal if my hypothetical wife gave birth to an Ice Giant.]_

“Is that… how it works?”

_[No idea. Perhaps not. Aesir genes are dominant and the offspring sired with other races is predominantly Aesir.]_

“That happens?”

_[Not often, but there’s a precedence. Most of the races of the Nine can crossbreed, with varying rates of success.]_

She raised an eyebrow. “Including humans?”

_[Definitely including humans.]_

“That’s… interesting. And the baby would be an Aesir, genetically?”

_[Yes.]_

“I think we would have noticed if we had immortal babies running around. Or adults, for that matter.”

Loki sighed. _[They are usually taken away when found.]_

“What happens to them?”

_[Depends. If the Aesir parent is of a respectable lineage and is willing to legitimize a bastard the child can be raised like a part of the family.]_

“I sense a ‘but’ there.”

_[But if it’s not acknowledged it would be raised as an orphan, to become a soldier or a servant. And if it’s an Aesir woman to become pregnant with a mortal, the pregnancy would be terminated.]_

“What if she wants to keep the baby?”

_[I think you misunderstood. That’s not a choice.]_

_Fucking aliens._ “How can you say that like it’s… okay? What about the other parent?”

_[A mortal’s opinion rarely matters in Aesir affairs.]_

She pressed fingers to her eyelids. Of course. “You think that’s fair?”

He shrugged. _[My opinion matters even less. And it might be biased, for multiple reasons. That’s how it’s always been done.]_

“What about Thor then?”

_[I can’t speak of his opinion either.]_

“No, I mean, what about Thor and Foster? He seemed quite deeply involved.”

_[It’s not his first fling. The court isn’t too happy, I assume, but he is the crown prince and thus allowed certain indiscretions. And any fallout would be dealt with accordingly, if needed.]_

“You’re saying there’s no way for them to be together?”

_[Not if Thor wants to remain the heir to the throne. And Odin will be quite adamant to keep him as one now that he doesn’t have… a spare. Of course, he never did, not truly, but now the entirety of Asgard is aware of that and losing Thor would be too much of a blow to the stability of the crown.]_

“Thor didn’t strike me as the most reasonable person. What if he decides he’s ditching Asgard for Jane?”

_[He would come to his senses, if not now, then in a couple of years, when he gets bored. Or a few decades, after she is gone.]_

_Right._ “Is this truly how you see humans? Insignificant splotches on your lengthy timeline? Like pets you shouldn’t be growing attached to because they are gone before you blink an eye?”

Loki hesitated with his hands in the air.

“What was the most important moment of your life?” she asked.

_[Why are you asking me this?]_

“I’m helping you come up with an answer. So, what was the most important moment in your life?”

_[Finding out what I am.]_

“And how long did it take?”

_[I don’t think I follow.]_

“It was just a single instance in time. You didn’t know then you did. Yet it’s going to define you forever. Your life will never be the same because of that knowledge.”

Loki stared at her, baffled.

“There’s this Russian saying: how well you live makes a difference, not how long,” she said. “It’s not about how long things last. It’s about their impact, what you take from it and how you use it. Nothing lasts forever, neither the good nor the bad. There’s a sunrise after every night just like there’s a sunset after each day. So maybe you shouldn’t worry about how long things last and start experiencing them as they come and draw meaning from _now_.”

His brows furrowed and he looked away at the horizon, still painted red by the last rays of sun.

She allowed him a moment to ponder, before speaking up. “Let’s go another round. I’m not going to let you win this one.”

He rolled his eyes.

“Beginner’s luck, that’s all. I’ll kick your ass.”

_[You wish.]_

\---

_[I won.]_

“No, you didn’t. It’s a draw, at best.”

_[What’s the point in making a whole system for counting points if you’re not going to use it?]_

“It’s a mortal thing,” she said. “You wouldn’t get it.”

_[Making rules and then not following them?]_

“Being a sore loser,” she laughed, “but that too.”

 _[Neither is a purely human flaw,]_ Loki said. He pulled out the now useless gun, weighted it in his hand, then gave Natasha a questioning glance.

“Do the honors,” she said and pointed her chin at the sea.

He hurled the weapon, far into the water. It landed a good hundred yards off the shore with a massive splash. She handed him the other one and he repeated the process.

“We should’ve done this weeks ago,” she said and readjusted the straps of her belt. “Those fuckers were heavy.”


	26. Roads not taken

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which a new course of action is decided upon.

They started on just as the moon-planet peeked from behind the trees. Their progress was still slow but there was nothing else to do, as she couldn’t practice so quickly after almost draining herself dry, so there was no point in wasting light.

“You think we will be able to find our way back?” she asked. Loki gave her a weird look. “To the sphere, I mean.”

_[That shouldn’t be too hard. We stay on the beach until we find that first stream outlet, then follow that instead.]_

“I was afraid you’re going to say that.”

_[What else was I supposed to say? That’s the idea behind going back, taking the same road in reverse.]_

“Yeah, I know, I know,” she chuckled. “I just… It’s weird, that’s all. I’m very much aware of how stupid it sounds, but I feel like we are undoing any progress we’ve made by going back the same way. I thought that maybe we could take some alternative route or something.”

_[There’s no alternative route, unless you want to carve your way through the jungle, which would be a lot less convenient and take longer. Plus, we would be cutting ourselves from the source of food.]_

_Ourselves. That’s a very diplomatic way to put it._ “It’s just… we know there’s nothing on the shore to find, but we have no idea what might be hiding in the jungle. Maybe there’s more of those spheres – or anything else – hidden all around and we just haven’t found it because we never wander further than a couple hundred yards inland.”

 _[You feel we shouldn’t stay on the beach?]_ he asked with a frown.

“Yeah,” she admitted. “I know it makes no sense whatsoever though. Now that I’m thinking about it, it seems silly to even bring it up. Sorry.”

 _[No, it’s good you’re telling me that,]_ he said. _[I’ll go fishing before sunrise, then we’ll head inland.]_

She regarded him with a frown. “Why? You said it yourself, it’s pointless. We shouldn’t be putting ourselves on a disadvantage just because of some stupid hunch.”

_[Perhaps it’s nothing.]_

“But?”

_[It might be your instinct calling you.]_

“Instinct?”

_[Magic. That’s how we found the sphere in the first place, didn’t we?]_

“Uhm, not at all. We wouldn’t be there if you didn’t make me jump down that goddamned waterfall. I didn’t want to, remember?”

_[I didn’t make you. You agreed. If you said no, we would go a different way and we would never find it.]_

“You would allow me to backtrack and find another route?”

_[Yes.]_

“Why?”

_[What another alternative was there?]_

She glared at him.

_[You really expected me to push you off?]_

“Well, that did cross my mind, not going to lie,” she laughed but the smile died down on her lips as soon as she saw his worried and more than slightly offended frown. “Come on, put yourself in my place. All I knew about you back then was you were a maniac who wanted to subjugate my world. Hurling one person off a cliff wasn’t a preposterous assumption in that context.”

_[When you put it this way…]_

“I considered pushing you off as well, if that makes it any better.”

_[Why didn’t you?]_

“You saved me from falling into a chasm a couple hour earlier. I didn’t want to be alone. I needed you to go back home. I was curious what your deal is. Pick your answer,” she said. “I’m glad I didn’t, that’s for sure.”

 _[It would make a lot of things easier. For both of us,]_ he said. She wondered briefly if it’s time for another motivational speech, but there was humor in his eyes, so she could hold onto it for a while longer.

“Nah, your sturdy ass would’ve lived, and I wouldn’t hear the end of it.”

_[That’s also plausible.]_

“Why didn’t you ask me to remove the shackles before you jumped though? You didn’t even mention it then and it was a good excuse to be rid of them.”

_[Would you do it?]_

“I don’t know. You can be quite convincing and, well, not drowning after a thirty-story drop is as good of a reason as they go. But, yeah, I’d probably think you’re trying to trick me. It was a good call to wait me out.”

 _[I wasn’t playing you. You obviously wanted to keep me chained and it wasn’t important enough to risk making you suspicious. More suspicious,]_ he amended. _[I barely even noticed them anymore.]_

“You were serious when you said you don’t mind.”

_[Yes.]_

“Fuck. And it’s my fault you’re stuck with those right now,” she said and pointed at his left wrist. “I bet you wish you were thrown through space with some half-decent person instead.”

 _[It’s hardly the worst thing I’m stuck with,]_ he pointed out, _[and only you would be foolish enough to stand up to Maw.]_

“Uhm, thanks?”

_[That wasn’t a compliment.]_

“I’m going to pretend it was.”

_[Have it your way then.]_

“Okay.”

_[Okay.]_

She laughed, allowing him the last word. He deserved a win from time to time, no matter how small.

\---

A shake on her arm jostled her awake and she blinked blearily. It was dark still and she could barely make out the vague outline of Loki’s silhouette against the dim glow of the burned-out embers and the starry sky.

“What?” she rasped with her sleepy voice.

She could see he was moving his hands but that’s about it.

“I can’t tell for shit what you’re trying to say.”

He huffed out in annoyance but moved away, closer to the fire. _[We are going fishing.]_

“Uhm, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but my arm is still kind of broken.”

_[Only one. You’ve got two and the other is fine.]_

“All right,” she grunted and dragged herself up. “You know I can’t see in the dark, right?”

_[The first light is not far off.]_

The eastern sky might have a bit of an orange tint, if she used her imagination. “How can you tell?”

_[Stars.]_

Oh, so he learned the night sky already. _Nice_. “And how are you up?”

_[Meaning?]_

“We’ve stayed long into the… second part of the night. You had nightmares again?”

_[No.]_

“How can you be up before sunrise on your own, after just a few hours of sleep, without anything to wake you up?” Now she thought about it, he was often awake way before her when he figured he needed to do something.

_[I don’t think I follow. I needed to be up, so I’m up.]_

“Geez, I wish my body came with that functionality. Bye, bye alarm clocks.” He graced her with one of those perplexed “mortals are ridiculous” gazes and she chuckled. “You know what, never mind.”

He tossed a few leftover pieces of wood into the fire, sat down, and picked a stick and a piece of cracked rock. From the looks of it he’s been at making a new spear for quite some time. Apparently, he didn’t need light and he saved the fuel.

For her.

Just like everything else.

\---

 _[Align it with your arm, like this,]_ Loki said and adjusted the spear in her hand. _[And stop flailing around, you’re scaring the fish.]_

“I’m not flailing around,” she grunted and slowly moved one step closer. The fish they’ve been trailing in the shallow tide pool spooked and dashed away, as far as the pond went. “They are stupid enough to get caught in those pools, but still startle like crazy. I don’t get it. There’re no natural predators.”

_[Might be some dead-end evolutionary trait.]_

“Or something does hunt them, down in the deep.”

_[That’s possible.]_

She shuddered. “Okay then, let’s not think about it ever again.”

_[If there’s something living in the depths, it stays away from the shore or we would’ve seen it by now.]_

“Should I be consoled by that thought?”

_[You should be catching your breakfast.]_

“Watch me.” She crouched closer to the ground, took a few cautious steps and launched the spear. It broke the surface a foot off the target and stuck into the sand. The fish swam away, unharmed. “Not a word.”

In the corner of her eye Loki paused and lowered his hands back down.

She made another approach, keeping herself close to the water surface, just like Loki did when he showed her how to do it, probably because it made him appear less threatening in the fish’s eyes. Or something. One would’ve thought that all the countless hours of melee weapon training would prepare her for this, but it didn’t. The makeshift spear was rough and unbalanced, and she couldn’t hope to throw it with any sort of accuracy, especially with her left hand. Sneaking close and sticking it right through the target was pretty much the only option.

She lunged and the fish darted away, at the last possible moment. “Come back here, you little shit!” she yelled as she tossed the stick in its general direction. It pierced the fish right smack through the middle, pinning it to the ground. “Ha!” She threw her good arm up in triumph.

Loki bestowed her with a doubtful glare.

“Oh, come on! I did it, see?” She pulled the stick free and waved her catch in front of his face.

_[You got lucky.]_

“That was _pure skill_.”

_[Fine. Let’s see how you do with a target that’s not already half dead and trapped in a puddle for your convenience.]_

“Party pooper,” she muttered and followed Loki to the open sea.

\---

It took the best part of the morning before Loki decided they had enough to last them for a couple of days and there was no point in gathering more, as they had no way of preserving the meat. Or he just grew bored with her inept attempts, it was hard to judge. Either way, the midday sun has chased all the fish away from the shallows and no amount of standing in waist-deep water like a stick in the mud would change the outcome.

_[A few more years and you might get adequate at catching your own food.]_

It was a light-hearted jab but the undertone still managed to make her uneasy. Because, yeah, there might yet be years of her doing that. Alone.

She still laughed and even managed to make it sound convincing enough. “So, into the jungle we go?”

 _[Yes,]_ he said with a sigh.

\---

Into the jungle they went, and it took less than a quarter of an hour for Natasha to regret ever mentioning it. Gone was the pleasant sea breeze, gone was the smooth sand under their feet, back was the branches and vines scratching their faces and the dense undergrowth, growing more and more annoying the further they progressed.

Then it started raining again.

“If it’s really my instinct calling me, it’s being a complete asshole.”

Loki huffed out a laugh. He looked just as miserable as she felt, maybe even worse, but, as per usual, he wasn’t the one to complain. She stopped herself from wishing he would. He wouldn’t want the vapid consolation of empty words anyway. So she didn’t comment, whatever she said would be for her own comfort, not his.

“I know it’s still too early to try again, but you mentioned there’s some spell I could try next. I’ve been wondering what that could be.”

_[Torchlight.]_

“And what’s that?”

_[A simple manifestation of one’s core in a physical world. The name comes from the illumination it produces.]_

“So, it’s like a flashlight you can power with your life energy?”

_[That’s the main practical application, yes.]_

“Sounds cool. How do you do that?”

_[You bring forth a thread of the energy and focus it in one point. With enough practice you manipulate its size, brightness, and color too, but at first you should focus on the act of energy transformation itself.]_

“What kind of transformation?”

_[A fire takes the chemical energy stored in fuel and transforms it into heat you can feel and light you can see. It is similar, but you’re using your mind instead of the process of combustion as the catalyst.]_

“Right.”

_[It will help you understand the nature of power within you.]_

“Don’t I need to know all the… science behind it? I mean, I know that fire burns and I have a basic idea why, but I don’t know all the details, all the chemical reactions that rule it. I’d imagine that’s something you’re supposed to know first, right?”

_[Do you know how tissue knits back together or how guts mend?]_

“No…”

_[Yet you healed me all the same.]_

“I guess… But that was an accident.”

_[No. There was an intent behind it, you told me that yourself.]_

“Yeah, but… It sounds suspiciously like ‘you can do anything if you just wish hard enough’ kind of bullshit.”

_[Sometimes it’s all it takes.]_

“It can’t be that easy. Everyone would be doing it.”

_[Everyone is doing it.]_

She blinked.

_[You’re using your energy all the time to power your brain, your muscles, your organs. You don’t have to know exactly how it happens to do it. I don’t need to think about the cells in my body burning carbon for energy to move my hands now.]_

“Isn’t that different? You don’t need to be taught how to move your hands before you can use them.”

_[But you do. You learn it when you’re just a babe. If you sprouted a new limb right now, you’d have to learn to use it first.]_

“Uhm…”

_[Let me put it differently. You think Thor really understands how lighting works and relies on that knowledge each time he smites his enemies?]_

“Probably not?” she chuckled. “But the power comes from his hammer, doesn’t it?”

_[No, Mjolnir just helps him channel and amplify his innate magic, just like Odin’s Gungrir channels Odinforce, but is not its source.]_

“So, he can shoot lightings _without_ the hammer?”

_[Not the last time I checked, but it’s for his unwillingness to learn and understand the extent of his ability, not because it’s impossible.]_

“Too bad. It seems like a useful thing to have; in case he loses his fancy tool or something.”

_[He can’t just lose it. It’s enchanted to always come to him once he calls it. Nor it can be destroyed.]_

“Neat.”

Loki sighed.

“You tried to disrupt it being made, right? Why?”

He hesitated, then hung down his head. _[Out of jealousy, I suppose. Thor was so self-assured, he was falling behind in every area of our lessons besides arm training, had no consideration for anybody but himself nor any interest in politics which was his responsibility as a future king, yet he was still rewarded with such an extraordinary weapon, while…]_

“While you got nothing.”

Loki shrugged. _[I don’t like to think about it. Or, more precisely, what happened later.]_

“You want to talk about it?”

_[Maybe some other time.]_

She knew that answer well enough. “Sure.”

They walked in silence for a while. She adjusted the sling. It wasn’t all that uncomfortable, and the fracture didn’t really hurt that much if she kept her arm steady, but the itch was driving her insane already and she knew it’s going to get worse.

“Loki.”

He crooked his head and raised an eyebrow.

“Thank you.”

_[For what?]_

“Everything.”

_[If I have the right to choose, I preferred you more when you were constantly apologizing instead of expressing gratitude.]_

She smiled. She didn’t expect any other reply.

\---

The only positive aspect of the new situation – the novelty of being off the beach – wore off very quickly. The jungle offered just as much variation in the terms of vistas, which was to say – not a lot. And the night brought another reminder of the times she thought were gone for good, as they could find no open – or dry enough – place for a fire.

She wasn’t scared of the darkness, she never was, but the absolute blackness that surrounded them deep in the woods still unnerved her slightly, even if the feeling wasn’t as strong as it was originally. So – as much as she wasn’t going to admit that – she appreciated when Loki settled down next to her, completely unprompted. She might have even let out a low purr once she curled by his side and he wrapped his arm around her shoulders. It was pleasant and even the nagging thought that it was only temporary, and they were hurling through time and space towards what most likely was their collective doom in one way or another couldn’t completely squash the warmth in her belly. She chose to believe that he found some comfort in the closeness of another person too and didn’t do it only because it was something he knew she’d want.

Loki tapped her shoulder. Once, then again and again. It took her a moment to realize there was a pattern.

“Wait, is that Morse code?”

A long pat – that’s a dash. A shorter one – that’s a dot. Then two more dashes, a pause, a single dot, another pause and three more dots. _Yes._

She chuckled. “That’s impressive, not going to lie. And tedious. Is there really something so important it can’t wait till morning?”

_No._

“You’re doing that just because you can, right?” _Just to prove to yourself there’s still something you could do._

_Guilty._

She laughed then huddled closer, wrapping her hand around his waist. “Good night, Loki.”

 _Good night_ , his fingers tapped.


	27. Waning light

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which things crumble and an improbable turn of events happens.

At first, they marched East and only after a full day of walking Loki suggested they should alter their course towards the South. They knew there were multiple streams running from inland towards the sea and that way they would be more likely to stumble upon one of those again. Reaching the ridge wasn’t a priority, at least not this soon. She assumed they had to, in the end, before they crossed their original trail towards the sea without even knowing, but Loki didn’t seem concerned about it. It was still miles off. Hundreds, if her calculations were right. Sure, they weren’t in a hurry since the time they reached the beach, but even considering the slower tempo and taking all the prolonged stops into the equation they had covered at least ten miles per day, probably more than that.

She wasn’t sure how long it was since they landed on the moon, she lost count around day twenty, and that was quite some time ago. Loki most likely kept track, but she didn’t bother with asking. That was one thing they did not have in common, there were things she felt more comfortable just not knowing. A hell lot of things, as of late.

Or maybe he wasn’t concerned about losing their way just because he knew they wouldn’t reach the sphere in time. Stumbling blindly upon some other artifact – or basically anything that could be of any use – was the only option where their journey didn’t end with his death and he didn’t keep his hopes up. So, in a way, nothing has changed. She didn’t need to see inside his mind again to know he considered his fate sealed from day one and only went on with the plan because she insisted. That’s also why he didn’t protest as they were pushing ahead, just like at the beginning. 

There was simply nothing else to do.

Loki spent evenings expanding the theoretical basis of her knowledge about magic, until his hands grew too tired to move, but there was no practice or training she could go through with, leaving them with no purpose but to walk ahead. Again.

He was adamant she shouldn’t risk trying any new spells so soon after she nearly drained herself to death. She didn’t argue. She could feel that too, a phantom of the strain that ringed as a dull ache in her body and an empty, eerie sensation at the back of her head. Just pulling forth her core made it flourish into a full-blown headache and a feeble attempt to prod it to obedience, to speed up the healing process of her broken arm maybe, made her vision swim and darken. She abandoned the idea, for now. It wasn’t worth it to make herself useless for the rest of the day, just for that bit of extra practice, and – according to Loki’s words – the damage was too extensive for her to be able to heal it fully without external energy sources. Unless she was yearning to suffer from overstrain again, which she did not. In hindsight, she shouldn’t have even tried, so she settled on not admitting she did. It was foolish and she should have listened.

She listened, now. About the rules of energy exchange, about the ways to explore universal powers, about sensing magic and she did her best to remember, even if she couldn’t really understand it all yet. Loki insisted she should work on dreamwalking still, as it might be her way to reach for help if the magic of the planet turns out a complete dud, but he shirked from answering when she asked how long it would take to get to that level of expertise.

 _[You’ll get there, in time,]_ he said instead. “But not soon enough for me” was left hanging in the air, unsaid.

“How am I supposed train without… a partner?”

_[It doesn’t need to be a conscious mind. It can be a machine, or a construct made by a spell, or even a whisp of cosmic energy that you can link to. Direct your mind and explore, and with enough practice you’ll be able to reach further and further. And, when you’re ready, try with people you know well, your core subconsciously adjusts to the way of thinking of the minds you’re familiar with and the defenses won’t fight you as much if it’s someone who considers you a friend.]_

“Okay, that eliminates the good chunk of the universe at least,” she laughed, half-heartedly. “What about animals? What about aliens?”

_[Depends on the species. As you might have noticed, it’s possible with kin races. It worked for us, because our brains use similar cognitive structures, but not every mind works that way. You have to be careful, as an unfamiliar thought assembly might overwhelm you if you’re not ready, and drag you under, drown your own consciousness, making you unable to act, to pull back. And no, you shouldn’t try on fish, at least not until you’re certain you know what you’re doing. A mind too simple can trap you in just as much as a too advanced one.]_

She laughed and it was far more genuine this time, because that was a bullseye. “Okay, no talking to fish. Anything else I should avoid?”

_[Your enemies, but that should go without say. Minds considerably stronger than your own, unless it’s consensual. The rest depends on the context.]_

She nodded with a sigh. Getting all this information – of which she could even understand some of – with no way to hone it into an actual skill only frustrated her all that more.

At least her strength was returning as days went by, her body recouping its resources, both mental and physical. It would be a good thing, but every improvement was a measurement of more time that has passed. And she couldn’t really rejoice at that, not when she couldn’t help but notice that the process was an exact opposite for Loki.

And it showed.

The small boost her magic gave him gradually faded and withered away. He wouldn’t say a thing, of course, but he didn’t need to, she could still see it. In the way he talked less and less and in how the stops he needed just to catch a breath grew more and more frequent. How he looked like it was just sheer stubbornness that kept him upright at the wake of every day. How he couldn’t fully hide the sigh of relief as they settled down to rest. How he relied on a support of a nearby tree to get himself back up on his feet but still swatted her hand away and snorted with affront when she tried to help.

He slowly unraveled, bit by bit, crumbled under the relentless onslaught of time. And all she could do was helplessly watch it happen, painstakingly cataloging each hitched breath, each stutter of his steps, how the angles of his body grew more acute every day, in her plain sight, now that he didn’t even have a shirt to wear.

Maybe it was a mistake. Maybe all that stupid plan of hers was but another round of torture he chose to (was forced to) endure on her whim. Bringing him back from a brink of death wasn’t an altruistic act of mercy, not at all. She did it for herself, didn’t she? She denied him a dignified end and sent him chasing shadows instead, prolonging the inevitable, putting him through more pain and suffering, just because she was selfish and wanted to feel useful for once.

Just because she was terrified of being alone.

If she really cared, she would let him go. It would be a kinder thing to do, no matter how she felt about it. About him.

\---

Loki stumbled.

He would have fallen if she didn’t notice in time. She held him up then slowly helped him sit down. His eyes were bleary and sweat was plastering hair to his forehead.

“You want some water?”

It’s been a while since they found the last stream, but there was still some liquid left on the bottom of the replacement container. She held onto it just in case and opted to chew on some leaves instead. Loki needed it more. 

All she got was a headshake.

“Come on, just a little?”

 _[No point in wasting it,]_ he said, shaking his head again.

“It’s fascinating how you can be so smart and such an idiot at the same time,” she said. “Now shut up and drink some water before I force you.”

_[And how do you plan on doing that?]_

“I’ll figure something out, don’t you worry.”

He huffed out in annoyance but picked the container from her hand all the same.

 _[You know it’s pointless, right?]_ he asked after he was done drinking. There was water that dripped down to his chest despite his best efforts. He wiped it off.

“Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. Either way, you agreed I could try.”

_[I wouldn’t call it an agreement.]_

“Okay, you allowed me to talk you into agreeing. Does that go better with your delicate royal sensibilities?”

_[No.]_

“Then I’m sorry, but there’s nothing I can do for you.”

_[I know.]_

“Oh for fuck’s sake, do you really have to be like _that_?”

_[Like what?]_

“That!” she snapped, gesturing all over him.

_[Dying?]_

That put her on a momentary pause. “You’re not dying. Not today,” she muttered, as she scrambled to get her composure back.

_[Today, tomorrow, what’s the difference? It’s going to happen.]_

“Maybe not.”

 _[Natasha,]_ he said, using the sign she showed him. It was the first time he did it.

She blinked.

 _[Just… don’t. We both know the miracle you’re waiting for is not going to happen. The sooner you admit it, the better. I’m…]_ he paused and dragged his fingers through his hair, _[just tired. Of chasing the impossible, of pretending.]_

“So you want to, what, just stop? Sit down and wait for death?”

_[No.]_

“Then what?!”

_[I don’t know. But I can’t take it anymore.]_

“Take what?”

 _[Hope,]_ he gestured and looked away.

It rendered her speechless for a second. “You say like it’s a bad thing to have,” she managed in the end. It sounded empty.

_[How could it be anything but? Each time I allowed myself to hold onto it, I just ended up somewhere even worse. I hoped I could fix things in Asgard, that I could prove my loyalty to Odin. I ended up in the Void. I hoped for it to end and it landed me with the Mad Titan and his minions. I hoped I could get away and here I am, mute, powerless and broken. How much further can I fall?]_

“It doesn’t have to be like that…”

 _[No. Stop.]_ He looked at her and his eyes glinted in the midday sun. _[It’s fine. I’m ready. The cycle ends here and it’s all right. You gave me more that I could ask for. It’s enough. Time to let it go.]_

“I can’t,” she said. Her voice trembled and the edges of the world grew blurry. “I’m sorry, but I can’t. You deserve better than this.”

 _[Perhaps that’s true.]_ he said with a dismissive shrug, but the sad smile crinkling corners of his eyes added a layer of doubt to the claim. _[That’s irrelevant. This is what I got.]_ He took in a deep breath and moved to get up.

She reached out to assist him, but the murderous glare stopped her mid-motion. “What are you doing?”

He cocked his head to the side. _[Standing up?]_

“You just told me you don’t want to go on.”

 _[I don’t want to sit here either,]_ he said and marched away, his gait only a little bit unsteady.

She shook her head and stood there, watching him go, for a few moments. He could claim that he wasn’t holding onto a false hope all he wanted. She could tell he wasn’t completely rid of it yet, so how could she?

\---

She didn’t get to him in time the next time he staggered. He collapsed to his knees and stayed down on all fours for a moment before he attempted to get up, but couldn’t, his legs suddenly unable to hold him up anymore. A frustrated grunt quickly transformed into a pained gasp and he rolled to the side, pulled his knees close to his chest and threw his arms over his head.

She watched him, frozen in place, her gut twisted into a tight knot.

“I’ll… check further down, maybe there’s a stream there,” she muttered and turned on her heel without waiting for a response that may or may not come. She couldn’t bear to look at him right now. 

They were walking down a very slight slope for quite some time and it was not beyond the realm of possibility there would be water at the bottom of the decline. Getting to it would mean making herself useful.

She managed to reach the cover of a line of brushes before she couldn’t hold it in anymore. She swallowed a sob as tears burned in her eyes. Her good hand curled into a fist and she slammed it into the tree, again and again, her knuckles smashing the bark and painting it red, until pain drowned the ratchet in her head. Then she stood there, limp and exhausted, and numbly watched the blood dripping down her fingers. It pooled into fat drops that fell and disappeared on the rusty layer of rotten leaves on the forest floor.

She took a couple of rattly breaths, gritted her teeth and continued down the slope.

\---

She found a small trickle in a shallow valley half a mile or so from where they stopped.

 _[What happened?]_ he asked when she returned, his eyes trained at her wounded hand.

She shrugged. She didn’t want to lie but didn’t want to admit to the moment of weakness either. She was supposed to be the strong one now.

He took the container she was holding out for him without further pushing the subject. He knew better than that.

“There’s a small clearing just behind those trees. It should be safe to light a fire there. You think you can walk a couple more steps?”

He nodded, half-heartedly, and she grabbed his arm to help him up. “Let’s skip it this time, okay?” she said. The scowl slowly vanished, and he hung his head in resignation before begrudgingly accepting the assistance.

\---

It was well past moonrise and Loki was still asleep. Bare the cases of injury, it was so unlike him to sleep in like that and she spent the last few hours torn between restlessly marching around the clearing, biting her nails and obsessively checking whether he was still breathing.

He was. At least for now.

She tried to stop herself from thinking that maybe it would be better if he wasn’t, without much success. To fall asleep and never wake up would be a painless way to go, at least. He would be spared some of the terminal symptoms of starvation, organs turning off one after the other after the body burned the last of the muscle mass for protein and there was nothing left to fuel it, and that only if an infection that it couldn’t fight off anymore didn’t claim his life first.

Fuck, it was surreal to even think about it while looking at him resting, his chest rising and falling in an even tempo, sleep wiping the worry from his face. Its lines grew sharper over the course of their journey and etched into her mind, every curve, every bone and every crinkle achingly familiar now, as if there existed no time at all when she didn’t know him.

She wished she could see his smile, hear his dark, smooth voice, if just one last time.

If wishes were horses…

No one deserved this kind of fate. But Loki was right. It was what he got. The universe dealt him a losing hand. He tried to play it the best he could but was doomed to fail from the very start.

The wave of hot anger rose from her stomach, set her cheeks to burning and pounded in her chest. If she ever gets back, if she ever lays her eyes on Thor, on Odin…

She laughed at the notion. Then what? Could she stand against the king of Asgard, where Loki, strong and smart and powerful, couldn’t? Against his golden son with a mystical weapon in his hand, with a power of gods circling in his veins? She might be skilled in some areas, but she was just a human.

Would the injustice the man who was supposed to be his father committed against Loki go unpunished?

No, she decided. She would find a way. Even if that’s the last thing she’d ever do.

She sat down next to him and gently brushed hair away from his face. “Loki?”

He slowly opened his eyes and stared at her through half-closed eyelids. Yet again found herself fascinated by the color, dark emerald now in the murky haze of moonlight. 

He raised an eyebrow, prompting her to follow up on the rude awakening.

“I’m just checking if you’re all right.”

 _[I’m great,]_ he showed angrily and turned away from her with a barely audible grunt.

She sighed and sat back. He did not go back to sleep, she could tell, but he still stayed motionless, facing away from her. Perhaps he anticipated another round of pep talk on her part and wanted to avoid it, but she had no more words for him. There wasn’t anything that was left to say. But saying that would mean she gave up on him and that also wasn’t true. So she didn’t.

“You want to hear a story?” she asked instead.

Loki shifted, curling his arm under his head, then gave a small nod, but didn’t turn to face her.

“I was married, once upon a time,” she started, digging through her brain, rousing half-faded memories, blurred by layers of conditioning that were applied, torn down and plastered over with her new life, her new identity. “I was sent to spy on a general, Valeriy Yahontov, who was suspected of collaborating with the enemy. I’m not certain which enemy it was, but I guess it didn’t matter that much, because that wasn’t why KGB wanted to be rid of him. If it was anyone else, he would be just disappeared without a trace, but he had too many friends in too high places and just killing him would stir the pot in the wrong way. So, I was ordered to wrap him around my finger, lure him into an affair and provide enough compromising material to discredit him and make him a persona non grata, so his peers wouldn’t want to affiliate with him no more, for the risk of gathering too much unwanted attention themselves, leaving him ripe for picking.

“It was my first solitary assignment and I wanted to do my best, but he was a hard nut to crack. He reacted to my seduction politely, but rather unenthusiastically. Perhaps he suspected something or maybe he was just loyal to his wife. I hovered around, trying different angles and awaiting further orders on how to proceed. But by doing that, I drew attention to myself. One of men in Yahontov’s suite took particular interest in me.

“His name was Alexei, and he was a high ranked officer. A pilot, said to be one of the best. I never seen him in action, so maybe that was just propaganda talk. But that wasn’t what was extraordinary about him. He was a survivor of USSR’s own supersoldier program. He was chosen, from thousands of ‘volunteers’.” She wrapped the word in air quotes, despite Loki not being able to see it. She wasn’t sure if he was even listening. “At the pinnacle of the Cold War USSR decided to make their own Captain America. Perhaps it was to prove the world they could do right where US faltered. Or just because they could, and human life is cheap. They pumped him full of their version of the serum. The formula was far from perfect and many have suffered and died from it, but he lived. He was a mountain of a man even before, that’s probably why he made it though, and it was easy to rewrite the story a bit and present it as a great success. They called him the great hero of the Soviet Union, for a while. Put him on posters, interviewed him on TV, made him appear in schools and during festivities. But twenty years on the buzz has passed and he was no longer useful, so Yahontov was free to sweep him into his suite of wooers.

“Alexei had no idea who I was of course, to him I was just this wide-eyed filly, dazzled by the high life of the military elites, flying blindly to the light like a moth, just like droves of other girls looking for better life. Many men wanted to take advantage of it. Many did. But he was… Not gentle, no, because it was not a world where you could go far being soft, but polite, at least. I played along but kept him at a distance. Until a new set of orders arrived, and I was told to get involved with him instead. If I couldn’t get to Yahontov himself, I could be useful in other ways, be the ears my masters wanted on the inside.

“I was trained well. It was an order, and I knew how to follow those. So, I did get involved. He courted me and I played my part. For weeks, then months. We were seen together, and he started introducing me as his fiancée and I blushed and smiled, because that was expected of me. I was involved in both his private and professional life, but, as far as I could tell, there was no foul play there. After all these years, after how he has been threated, he was still loyal.

“Then he asked for my hand and I fluttered my eyelashes and agreed, because what else was I supposed to do? No new directions were presented, so I went on with it. There was a ceremony. It was small, just closest friends. Yahontov blessed us himself, granted Alexei a two week leave and allowed us to use his dacha by the Klyazma river for a honeymoon retreat.

“It went on for so long and I thought that, maybe, my masters have simply forgotten about me. The thought… unmoored me. I suddenly had no purpose, like a kite with a cut string, left adrift. The conditioning started to unravel, and I couldn’t even discern what was real and what was not. Cause maybe I just imagined all the horrors of the Red Room? Maybe it was just some bad dream and I was an actual human being? It was far from perfect, but I thought that… maybe that life, that simple existence at Alexei’s side was a real thing, something I could have?”

She let out a weary breath and fell silent, playing with a frayed edge of the cloth wrap on her arm.

Loki turned to face her. _[What happened?]_

“Two days into the honeymoon a squad of agents raided the dacha. They dragged us into two unmarked Uazes. It was the last time I saw him. I was taken back to the Red Room, for reconditioning. I was told he died. I couldn’t allow myself to question it. Whatever happened between us, it wasn’t true.”

_[Why are you telling me this?]_

A strip of bandage came free from her fussing and she fumbled to fasten it before the whole thing came undone completely. Loki sat up and edged closer, then fixed the wrap, securing the loose end under a loop below it. “It’s just a story. And there’s no one else to tell,” she said quietly.

His fingers lingered around her arm for a moment before he moved them to speak. _[There’s more to it, is there not?]_

She nodded. “After Budapest, after I came to work for SHIELD, I was assigned to a mission. A series of assassinations on prominent political figures, with no name attached, not even a scrap of evidence to who it was. Some said it was the Winter Soldier – the legendary operative, credited with over fifty kills all over the globe. Some said it was just someone inspired by them, as the Winter Soldier was dormant for over a decade at that point and many believed he perished or simply retired. As for me – I was undecided. I had a brush with him, years earlier and he came within an inch of killing me… We didn’t figure it out that time either, but I still got to see SHIELD’s portfolio with their entire research on the subject. They suspected he was an enhanced individual, an effort of the Russian supersoldier program. SHIELD had quite a dossier on that too. And when I went though it, I stumbled upon a file on Alexei. The name didn’t match, but it was him. It turns out he wasn’t executed. They used him as a guinea pig. To create the new batch of supersoldiers maybe. He was apparently too valuable to just get offed like that.”

_[Did you search for him?]_

“No. The file was clear. He was dead. There was an autopsy report and everything. But he died in ninety-eight. Almost twenty years later. He was kept prisoner that whole time and no one was even looking, because the official story was he deserted and fled the country to be with his new wife. And I couldn’t keep but thinking that if I ever looked for him, if I just didn’t give up…” She sighed and rubbed her eyes. “So, you see, I’m not going to make the same mistake again. That’s why, as long as there’s the smallest sliver of a chance left, I can’t give up.”

He studied her face for a long moment. _[It wasn’t your fault.]_

She smiled and nodded, unwilling to call him out on that particular lie. 

\---

“A penny for your thoughts.”

Loki unglued his gaze from the unspecified point beyond the line of trees and eyed her warily.

“It’s a figure of speech. It means…”

_[I know what it means.]_

“Then what’s the problem?”

He shifted and adjusted the shackle on his wrist. _[I was thinking about Thor.]_

“Some new murder plan? I can help.”

_[No.]_

_Of course_. “I’m sure he is fine.”

Loki nodded and went back to staring at the distance. _[He will be, eventually.]_

It didn’t come as much of a surprise. Despite all that Loki told her, it was obvious there was a millennium of shared history between the two and not every single piece of it was miserable. And, if there truly are things that can’t ever be fully destroyed by animosity, this sort of bond had to be one of them. It can get strained and twisted, but not completely broken, even if Loki never gets a chance to make amends.

“He will get it one day.”

_[Get what?]_

“That you were not his enemy.”

He stayed motionless for a long while. _[If you ever…]_ he started and changed his mind. He rubbed his eyes and let his hands rest in his lap.

“I will. I will tell him. I will keep on talking until he gets it.”

 _[Thank you,]_ he said, without looking up.

They sat in silence for a while.

_[You wanted to know about humans travelling to other planets.]_

She stared at him.

 _[You asked me to remind you,]_ he said, _[so, here’s your reminder.]_

She wasn’t surprised he remembered, where she completely forgot. He always did. “Why now? It was weeks ago.”

_[It might be the last opportunity.]_

The sentence felt like a physical blow.

_[Do you still want to know?]_

She nodded, temporarily unable to form words.

_[Earth was treated as a free real estate for millennia, by anyone who could reach you. And humans, while not long living or durable, proved very adaptable, which made you perfect for certain… uses. The way you look similar to the Aesir would also be considered an advantage by some. And your sheer numbers made you expendable.]_

She gaped at him. “So… you keep humans as what? Pets? Slaves?”

Loki shrugged. _[Not so much in my time, at least not on Asgard. Odin ordered the rest of the Nine to not interfere and it would look bad if he kept exploiting the source himself. But the Kree are still very fond of you. So are some of the other races.]_

She still stared at him, appalled.

_[I don’t understand why you’re so shocked by that. The distaste for slavery is a modern concept for humans. It wasn’t that long ago when your own laws allowed people to keep your fellow humans as slaves, and it still goes on in some areas of your planet. At least the Aesir don’t do that to their own people.]_

“You can’t honestly tell me the idea of _owning_ another person doesn’t bother you.”

_[Again, my own opinion matters little.]_

“I’d still like to know it.”

Loki sighed. _[It bothers me. Very much. Now more than ever, perhaps. But that would be just another thing that would make me stand out among the Aesir. It’s unbecoming to not think yourself above everyone else, especially for a royal.]_

“Fuck that shit.”

 _[Fuck that shit indeed,]_ Loki agreed, and she started laughing.

\---

“Hey, maybe we should go back to the beach after all?”

_[What for?]_

“I don’t know.” _So you can see the sunset one last time._

_[We are too far.]_

It was a simple enough statement, but it implied so much. Too much. Too far to get there in time. She twisted her fingers into knots and didn’t say anything else until they stopped for the night.

\---

Loki’s state worsened dramatically over the course of the next days.

One of the mornings he needed help just to stand up. Natasha held him, her hand clamped around his arm, squeezing tightly, as if he would just disappear if she let go. The days of his vehement protests to that were gone. He took a couple of uneven breaths before he gently pried her fingers away.

“You’re sure you can do this?”

_[No. But let me try.]_

He managed three uncertain steps before he swayed.

“Lean on me,” she said as she grabbed him again. “It’s all right. There’s no one here but me and I already know how tough you are.”

_[You will tire.]_

“I’m tough too.”

_[I never doubted it.]_

“Good boy,” she said with a smile and chuckled at his exaggerated eyeroll.

\---

Loki tried to rely on her support as little as he could, but she still had to grit her teeth to keep her spine straight. Even after losing so much weight he was heavy, higher body density was probably what kept him going thus far. But even that was no longer enough. She shoved the thoughts away and focused on the next step, then another.

Her arm was wrapped around his waist, her fingers grazing ribs poking through his skin where there was just lean muscle before. That, too, she tried to ignore, as well as his labored breathing.

_How much longer…_

_No. Don’t think. Just go._

She clutched him tighter and went.

\---

They didn’t get all that far.

He couldn’t quite hide a pained wince when his knees buckled and hit the forest floor. She supported him as much as she could, stopping him from crumbling to the ground and he held onto her. His fingers were wrapped around her arm so tightly his knuckles turned white, but there was only a fraction of his usual strength in the grip.

“Let’s rest for a while,” she said, helping him into a reclined position against the sprawling roots of a nearby tree.

He swallowed, hard, and it looked like even that caused him discomfort. His head nodded and fell. _[I don’t think I can do this anymore.]_ He could barely lift his left hand up to sign, the shackles too heavy for his weakened limb. _[I’m sorry.]_

“It’s okay,” she said, forcing the words through her squeezed throat. “You want to lie down for a while?”

She sat down by his side and patted her lap, but Loki either decided to ignore her or, more likely, didn’t notice and he curled up on the grass, folding his arms under his head. She smoothed his hair, brushing unruly curls away from his face, then rested her hand on his shoulder. His eyes traced her for a while, but then the exhaustion took over and his eyelids fell.

She didn’t move away until his breathing grew deeper and steadier and sleep eased the wrinkle on his forehead. If she could, she wouldn’t leave his side at all, but she had to. Even with the careful rationing she employed the fish meat was long gone, it’s been a while since she bothered to find anything but the sour leaves to chew on and now her stomach was twisting in hunger so much she couldn’t ignore it anymore. She _would_ ignore it, but she needed all her strength, now more than ever. And, as much as he insisted that seeing her eat doesn’t bother him at all, it still felt like an inappropriate – and just plain cruel – thing to do in front of him, so she was dedicated to use the chance, now.

The direction was picked at random, she didn’t much care which way she went, as long as it wasn’t the same route they’ve already covered. She found the telltale leaves of the edible roots easily enough and she dug a couple out from the soft soil without much effort. She broke off a branch at the eye level, to leave herself a sign to follow when she was tracing back. If she got lost in the forest now, it would probably be the most idiotic thing she ever did in her life. That was a high bar to cross.

Finding an area open enough for a fire was her next objective. So far, they had mixed luck with that, but at least she learned how to keep the fire under control by positioning it in a hole dug in the ground and with purposeful rationing of the fuel, so it wouldn’t burn too high. It still needed at least a dozen feet of relatively clear space and her search was coming up empty.

Just this short while of walking alone made her hyperaware of the silence of the forest, the absence of sound pressing on her from every direction, constricting her chest as if she were standing in neck-deep water. _This is how it’s going to be all the time._ Just silence and loneliness. How long will it take to pick apart her sanity, to turn her into a twisted ball of paranoia and anxiety? How long till she wishes for death to take her as well?

She stopped, holding onto a tree for stability, breathing deeply, until air flowed evenly in and out of her lungs again.

She should head back. Hunger wasn’t important, she should be at Loki’s side now, he needed her there. A sudden fear encompassed her, locking down her throat and twisting her gut into a tight knot. It was his last days, last hours maybe and she left him, like a complete fool. What if he lies there, under that unmarked tree, breathing his final breath, abandoned and alone, because she decided some basic, irrelevant need is more important? What if she is already too late? What the fuck was she thinking?

She willed her feet to move, turn around and run back; her body disobeyed, and she stood, rooted in place. There was something else, a tug, a call at the back of her mind, urging her to go forth. It was there before, too, but it was pulling at her more prominently now, until it was the only thing she could think about.

Forth.

She moved, slowly and unsteadily at first. Then she ran, the unknown force pulling her on. Branches swung at her head, vines and thorns scratched her face and exposed arms and she did little to avoid them. The chant wiped her mind clean of all other thought and dulled her senses, leaving only a sparkling desire to _go_.

Forth.

The trees parted and she tumbled onto an open plain, the sight knocking her out of the trance. She stopped and gaped like a fish out of water, for she momentarily forgot how to breathe.

In front of her eyes, a bit off the middle of a neatly oval clearing, stood the sphere.


	28. Voices

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which a sacrifice is required.

She blinked, but the sight before her eyes didn’t change. It was the sphere. Not any sphere that was just similar. No. It was the same one, the exposed part where Loki tore the sod away at the base all those days ago plainly visible even from the distance.

How’s that even possible? They couldn’t have made it that far, could they?

Yet there she was.

Her thoughts scrambled and scattered. The call was still there, but not nearly as overwhelming as before. Now it shone like a shimmering star above the surface of her mind and she could see it for what it was, her magic calling her.

Should she go back and bring Loki here?

No, there was no point, she would be just wasting time.

The call urged her to move again and she did, instinctively, before she could make a conscious decision. She let the momentum carry her on, until she reached the base.

It looked just like it did before but different at the same time. Where there was just cold rock before, something sparkled. The scribbles etched into the stone were still incomprehensive but now they seemed to shine with a sort of invisible light, like something just at the edge of her vision that wasn’t there when she focused her eyes. She could sense the faint power flowing and swirling, just beneath the surface.

She took the last decisive step forward, pressed her palm onto the wall and the world faded away.

\---

There was a beam of light on the other end of the cavern.

_This is it, Natasha. Now you’ll know._

A surge of distorted feelings crashed over her. This was it. She reached the next step. And yet it still felt like she failed. She did, didn’t she? She ran out of time. It was supposed to be just the beginning, the first rung of a ladder, and yet here she stood, at the bottom of a deep well, gripping tightly to it as her last hope, while the water swelled around her.

Her legs gave way and she collapsed to her knees as tears welled up in her eyes, blurring the outline of the brilliance on the other end of the cavern. It shifted and grew but she couldn’t make it out.

The pattern of light shifted again, and the fuzzy silhouette made of pure light stood in front of her.

“You came to find us again,” it projected, and she felt the connection reignite, the path it created shining brightly at the back of her mind, pulsing and changing, and her core danced and ebbed with its rhythm.

She nodded.

“You are not fighting anymore.”

Natasha shrugged, “There’s nothing left to fight for,” she whispered and blinked. Tears rolled down her cheeks, “I don’t care what you do to me. Whatever you do, it’s better than…” The words still refused to leave her lips. _Being alone._

“Your friend,” it said, “is dying.”

Natasha wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “Yes.”

“You are upset.”

“YES, I AM!”

“You love him.”

 _What does_ that _have to do with anything?_ “No… I don’t know…” she started but choked and her voice gave way. It wasn’t a question. It knew the answer already, has pulled it directly from her mind. “Yes,” she said instead, quietly.

“You could have helped him.”

“I tried! I… _We_ tried! But there’s nothing! There’s no one here and we can’t go home! And you! You’re not even real. Just a figment of my imagination.”

“That is not true.”

“Which part?”

“We are real, just not in the way you perceive reality.”

“What does that even mean?”

“We are… the closest term in your tongue would be _ghosts_ ,” the spectral said, “Mirror images. Ascensions.”

“Ghosts are _not_ real,” she belted.

“Your idea of them is not, but there are things that your kind has yet to discover”

“Then explain it to me.”

There was a ripple and a pulse of light and the projection wavered. Natasha fervently stared at the space it appeared on, as if she could will it to stay. The vision reignited.

“We were the original owners of this world.” The voice it _spoke_ in felt different somehow, “The dominant species. But our home was crumbling.”

Natasha nodded. She knew that already.

“We had no way to go. No place to call our own,” it explained, “So we went up.”

“Up?”

“Your languages lack proper words to describe it as you are a four dimensional being and you cannot yet see behind that curtain.”

“Do try.”

“Everything in the universe is bound with energy. It is the building material, binder, the feed and the filler and anything in between, that creates the world that you both can and cannot see.”

She nodded. She understood the concept well enough, even if Loki used different terms to describe it.

“Yes,” the projection confirmed, snatching the thought from the surface of her mind. “But there is more to it than that. It is not about drawing from the universe and bending its power to your will. You also must give in return. That ultimate balance creates a bond that cannot be broken. The energy becomes a part of you, as you become a part of the universe.

“When we lived on this world, our biological selves were born attached to the yarns of the universal power, attuned to it, the energy flowing though us like blood flows through your flesh. Over time we studied its inner workings and discovered its secrets and it allowed us to see the true shape of reality.”

Her own perception altered already, after that brief brush with the arcane and Loki said it was even more intense for him. Was that what the creature meant?

“You are but a child at the start of your journey. We walked those paths for generations, until our physical representations became just one of the aspects of our existence, their significance irrelevant in the greater shape of reality.”

“So, you were true mages, like Loki.”

“Far more than that. Your friend, even with all the power he possesses, is still a physical being, with all the limitations of that form. We were not, at least not fully. And, when it became clear that our home is coming to an end, we moved _on_.”

“So, you _are_ basically dead.”

“The concept of life and death no longer applies. But yes, within your understanding of the idea, we are no longer a part of the material world and we are – in a sense – dead.”

Okay, she lost it in the end, and she was talking to dead people. Great.

“But we are also more than that. Not just a memory, not just shadows of our biological selves. We are alive, maybe more alive than we ever were before, even if our physical representations are not.”

So yeah, ghosts. Right. “So… Why me? You should be talking to Loki!”

“We can sense his presence, but we cannot reach him. His connection is not broken, as it cannot be broken, but it _is_ blocked. And we cannot see why.”

“He was… punished,” she admitted, even if the word tasted like bile in her mouth, “By his king… His father. His magic was taken from him.”

“It is not something that can be taken away.”

“It doesn’t matter! He can’t use it and he is going to die because of it!”

“Was the judgement just?”

“I…” she stumbled, lost for words. She closed her eyes. Her heart was beating a frantic rhythm in her chest. “No,” she whispered, trying to get the tremble off her voice, “no, it wasn’t.”

There was a stretch of silence and the projection faded again. Was this a test? Did she fail it?

“Why are you asking me this?” she demanded but got no answer. She hid her face in her hands. This was too much. “Why are you even talking to _me_? I get that you’re drawn to Loki and his power and that you can’t reach him. But I’m not part of your plane of existence or whatever it is.”

“That is false.”

“Uhm, what?”

“The material and the immaterial are not truly separate, even if you cannot see the connection yourself yet.”

 _Yeah, yeah, two parts of the same universe, I get it._ “So?”

“Your link shines bright across the stars. You have touched the pure energy of the universe. You drew from it and it saw into your soul in return. You used its power, and it is bound with you forever.”

“No, this is bullshit! You reached me first, before I even knew I could do it. Besides, I can’t even reach the energy of the cosmos, the faults or whatever you ‘re calling it. All I can do is burn my life energy for simple tricks.”

There were no words, just a billow of images. Of memories. The battle. The gaping hole in the sky. And her, standing on the top of Stark’s tower, clutching Loki’s scepter in her hand, using it to close the portal. She could feel that power flowing through her, now, burning bright in her mind, whispering sweet promises into her ear, while she ignored it, unhearing.

She did that, without even realizing what she’s doing. “Oh.”

“There are six main aspects of all existence. Time, space, reality, power, soul, and mind. When this universe came into being, the anchors emerged, one for each of the aspects. Representations of the core concepts manifested in a physical form. They were scattered among the stars, to stay there for all eternity, to serve as a foundation, as a linchpin. To counterbalance the natural entropy. But it is not an infallible design, perhaps it is not a design at all, but a product of chance.”

“Perhaps?”

“We are no longer bound by the restrictions of time and space, but we are still part of the universe and we cannot see beyond its boundaries.”

_Like that explains anything._

“We cannot see what came before and what will come after.”

“After?”

“Everything that has a beginning, has an end. So does this universe.”

“And you’ve seen it?”

“Yes.”

“Care to share?”

The creature shifted and blurred at the edges.

 _Okay, touchy subject._ “Come on, I was joking!” she yelled and regretted it immediately. Because, was she, really? The thing knew her real thoughts anyway. “You were saying something about anchors?” She couldn’t put her finger on it, but it seemed important.

The form resolidified. “Each of those physical manifestations is capable of manipulating its aspect far beyond what is possible without it, as they originate from beyond the universe and are not bound by its rules.”

 _The Tesseract_. It was about the cube, not the staff. Loki called it the Space Stone and said it carried an immense power, it couldn’t be a coincidence.

“The Tesseract, as you call it, contains one of the anchors, yes. The staff contains the other. You used both at the same time.”

She blinked. Two? Weren’t the thingies supposed to be scattered among the stars? What are the odds of two ending up in the same place and time, in downtown Manhattan to boot?

“The anchors are not alive, not by your definition at least, but they are sentient,” the creature explained. “And they found one purpose – to become one again, as they were before the universe burst into existence. Living creatures can sense this driving force and are instinctively drawn to that power. Some seek them to study them. More seek them to use them to their advantage. Some succeeded.”

_Loki’s mysterious master._

“The Mad Titan Thanos is one of those who seek the stones.”

That was quite a mouthful. No wonder Loki didn’t want to say the name. “I assume he doesn’t want them just because they would look pretty on a wall?”

“He desires them to lay death and destruction upon the universe. And, if he succeeds, this universe will come to an end.”

“An end? Like, literally the end of everything?”

“If his plan comes to a fruition, the anchors will be destroyed. The universe cannot exist without its foundation and the reality would unravel.”

“Isn’t that what’s supposed to happen? You said it has to end anyway.”

“It is one of the possible outcomes, but it does not have to be.”

She frowned. How could it know then? Could it see the future or not?

“The universe is a superposition of all the possible paths. Nothing is set in stone until the path is chosen and the alternative ones are erased.”

“Uhm, okay. But why do you care? You’re not alive anyway. And, more importantly, what the hell does it have to do with me?”

“We are a piece of the universe and we cannot exist without it,” the apparition projected. The outline shifted and flashed bright blue for a second. “And you have an important part to play yet to ensure it does not come to existence.”

“Me?”

“Yes.”

“This was all about me?! What about Loki?”

“His life force is fading. His paths will soon come undone and disappear as well.”

The panic that’s been brewing at the back of her mind bloomed and burst from its confinement, rattling her heart against her ribcage and sending a new wave of tears to her eyes. “What happened to ‘nothing is set in stone until it happens’ bit?” she whispered. Her hands were shaking so she folded them in her lap.

“You could have helped him if you did not fight us before. If you listened. It is too late now.”

“If you were any less shit at explaining maybe I would have!” she howled, her voice cracking and her eyes brimming with tears. “You can’t say it like it’s my fault!” But it was, wasn’t it? She had a chance and squandered it, without even knowing it. Loki trusted her and she failed him because she was afraid of a bit of pain. If it were him, he would grit his teeth and bear it gladly.

“Whatever happened cannot be undone. There is no favor to gain from dwelling in the past.”

“I don’t care,” she said, looking down on her hands. The splint was missing, and her right hand seemed to work just fine, reminding her that this wasn’t even real.

“We can send you home,” the voice projected, flooding her with half-faded memories it dug from her brain.

A string of familiar faces and places appeared before her mind’s eye, drenched her mind in an onslaught of nostalgic yearning. She squeezed her eyes shut and focused on banishing the vision. It wasn’t her feelings. “I don’t care,” she repeated, louder. “No matter what you want from me, I won’t do it. The universe can go to hell for all I care. Maybe it should. It’s a vile, cruel place anyway.”

“You still do not understand.”

“Oh, I do understand perfectly. There’s a big bad wolf out there hunting and you’re afraid, because it threatens your cozy corner of the world. Guess what. It’s none of my business. You want to do something about it, I suggest you go and do it, because I sure won’t be your pawn.”

“Countless lives will be lost.”

“People die every day. I don’t see you doing anything about it.”

The light faded and wavered again, but she didn’t look up. Time passed, but she couldn’t tell if it was seconds or hours.

The silhouette flared back up, now closer, the part where it’s face should be hovering just above her head menacingly. “What are your conditions?”

“My what?”

“Name your price.”

“Can’t you just pull it directly from my brain like everything else?”

“It is too hazardous and uncertain.”

“What is?”

“Helping your friend.”

“So, it _is_ possible?” she said and couldn’t quite keep the undertone of desperate hope from her tone. “And why are you even asking me if it’s so important?”

“We need a material avatar to affect the physical world. We can use your physical body as a vessel to channel the energy, to cast the…” a flurry of concepts appeared in her brain, some more familiar than others, until the apparition settled on one, “spell to transport you back to Terra.”

“I assume you can’t do that without my consent, or else you’d do that weeks ago, right? Just like you couldn’t talk to me before I came to you.”

The outline flashed red, wavering angrily. “Correct. Resistance can affect the effectiveness of the energy transfer, invoking unwanted consequences, sending you in a wrong direction, in space, time or both.”

“Okay, so let’s say, hypothetically, that I agree to be your lighting rod. What’s the problem with sending two people instead of one?”

“It requires more energy. And your physical form is weakened right now. It cannot withstand the force without faltering. If you came to us earlier, before your resources were drained, the danger would be acceptable.”

 _We can wait for me to recover._ She opened her mouth to speak and shut them again. Because they couldn’t. Loki was dying, right now. He didn’t have weeks. He might not have days, or even hours. She started laughing, the ridiculousness of the whole situation overwhelming her. It was the worst possible timing. Her laugh echoed off the walls of the cavern and returned to her. There was something unhinged in it.

“You still don’t get it, do you? There’s no version of the universe where I agree to help you if you don’t allow me to take Loki with me. When he is still _alive_.”

“There is.” The form flickered out and reappeared, off to the side, the bright tendril of its upper limb resting on her shoulder. “But it is too late, more often than not.”

“You knew it would happen. You knew I wouldn’t agree!”

“There was a path where you did, but it is gone now.”

The ghost thingy was one shitty clairvoyant then. It knew the possible outcomes; it could read her mind and knew exactly how she felt yet it still fucked it up. And Natasha was glad it did.

“Your feelings are making you irrational.” The hand on her shoulder gripped her more tightly and squeezed, the familiar warmth spreading though her flesh. It wasn’t burning her, not yet, but the threat was there none the less.

“Take your fucking appendage off me or I’m not talking to you ever again,” she grounded through clenched teeth. “I mean it.”

The creature faded out and disappeared. A moment of non-time passed. A sliver of doubt creeped up from the bottom of her brain, but she squashed it before it flourished. She couldn’t show hesitation, it was her only chance.

The figure re-emerged, a few steps away. “You are not the only one who can stop Thanos. Your input is important, but there are timelines where he is defeated without your participation.”

“Okay, so you can sit and hope for one of those,” she said with a careful shrug. “Feel free to let me know how it worked out for you.”

The light shifted and flickered again, before reshaping, but something has changed about it, even if she couldn’t quite say what. “Your death is almost a certain outcome.”

“I. Don’t. Care,” she hissed. “What about Loki? Would he live, even if I die?”

“If the initial cast is successful, yes, he does survive.”

“So, just to get this straight. I just need to live long enough for you to channel the energy to initiate the spell for Loki to be sent back home, right? What are the chances of that?”

“Five out of ten. More if you prepare correctly.”

Fifty percent. _It’s too low_ , her first instincts screamed, but she reconsidered quickly, because it was still better odds than they had now. She went through this, there was no other plan, no alternative, it was either that, or he dies.

“Okay, let’s do it,” she said.

“You are throwing away your own life to save another.” There was no enunciation nor anything else to provide the emotion behind the words, but she still sensed surprise – or a sense of disbelief – in the statement.

“Well, that’s love for you, I suppose.”

“It is but a basic chemical reaction in your physical brain. It makes you act without reason.”

She smiled. It sounded so much like something Loki would say, probably with a “mortals are ridiculous” tackled at the end. He wouldn’t be any less wrong, too. “Maybe it is. It doesn’t mean it’s not real. So, what do I do? The preparation part, I mean.”

“Clear your mind. Find your friend, but do not get lost. Then call for us.”

“How am I supposed to call you?”

“The link will remain active if you do not sever it yourself. Follow it and we will come.”

“And what do you mean by…” she started. The creature shimmered and disappeared. It was gone, just like that. The connection in her mind dimmed, too, but did not go off completely and she considered reactivating it and calling the creature back, just briefly, before she decided against it. She didn’t want to risk annoying the apparition, lest it changed it mind. No matter, she could figure it out on her own.

\---

_Do not get lost._

Well, it did make sense, now. The world she came to after emerging from the cavern was point-blank, wet darkness. Even the stars were gone, covered with a thick layer of clouds. That would, at least, explain the rain.

She growled out a curse, then another, just to relieve the frustration. There’s no way she was going to find her way back to Loki like that. She had to wait till the moonrise. Or sunrise, depending on which part of the night it was, for she had no idea how much time has passed. She hoped it was the former, for it might yet carry a chance of Loki not waking up alone only to realize she is not at his side. She didn’t even warn him she’s going away and knowing him he would assume the worst. That something happened. Or that she just… left.

She closed her eyes, even if it made a little difference, and focused on clearing her mind of all the swarming doubts and fears, all the what-ifs. What if she was too late, what if the call doesn’t work, what if the spell backfires, what if the creature double-crosses her? It changed its mind too easily for some unknown reason. And if it won’t, what if _she_ falters at the last possible moment?

She called forth her core. It took some tugging, but it obeyed her, bursting to life under her eyelids. She ignored the shadow of a headache it invoked; it was no longer unbearable.

_Direct your mind and explore._

She wasn’t sure how to do it, or even what she was looking for, exactly. She didn’t want to contact him anyway, it was too dangerous in case it made Odin’s spell flare up, Loki couldn’t take another round of that abuse, not anymore. No, she just wanted to find him. To know that he was still _there_.

She expanded her scrutiny, trying to get a sense of the world around her and it slowly took shape, the vague outline of the sphere behind her back, brimming with energy, the pale silhouettes of the trees, their juices flowing under the skin of their bark, the moss and grass greedily drinking the rain away, the thick layer of mushy sod and the solid rock underneath.

She pushed further. A stream rolling over polished stones, swollen with rainwater, the gusts of wind meandering between the branches, the low, swarming clouds. And then she saw him. A bright blue-green spot on a dull gray background of the surrounding nature. She sensed his power, fading, but still present, trapped within the confines of his frame. She couldn’t believe she didn’t feel that before, it seemed so obvious now. The energy, the potential, locked in him, longing for release. It was cruel and inhumane, to do that to a living being.

Rage burned in her lungs and made her drop the focus, the vision folding on itself and disappearing from her mind. She curled her good hand into a fist and clashed it on her thigh, then took a deep breath. It wasn’t a time to lose it. She was going to fix it, as much as she could. It will be enough. It has to be. He is going to be all right. Someone will be there to help him. There must be _someone_.

Because it won’t be her.

It was a strange feeling, to know she was going to die and yet have no hint of fear or regret in her. Only this calming, soothing thought. She would die, so Loki could live. It was a bargain she was glad to take.

“I’m coming for you and you’re going home,” she whispered. There was a smile on her lips.

\---

She balanced on the thin line between awareness and sleep, her mind at ease but still watchful of her surroundings, until the soft glow of the Eastern sky dispersed the worst of the darkness and she could get a sense of the world around her yet again.

Backtracking wasn’t easy as the rain washed away her steps and the sturdy greenery recovered from being trampled, but once she found the point at which she breached the line of the forest, it went smoothly enough. She wasn’t exactly subtle while she was traversing the jungle before and the route cut straight across, unfaltering.

She covered most of the way by running again, until she reached the place where she stopped and succumbed to the call of the sphere, then traced the trail of broken branches back to Loki.

He was sitting between the roots of the tree, right where she left him and his head snapped up the moment she emerged from between the brushes, the expression of sheer relief frozen on his face, raw like a fresh wound. She dropped to her knees and embraced him. The grim realization that he stayed there, probably for hours, convinced she abandoned him, burned her insides like hot iron. She did not pull away until tension bled from his frame and his head rested on her shoulder. 

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “I should’ve warned you.”

He nudged her side, and she untangled her arms.

 _[What happened?]_ he asked, and his fingers brushed a fresh cut on her cheek. She acquired it during her wild run and all the rain prevented it from scabbing over.

“Well, that’s actually quite a funny story,” she said, then told him about the sphere.

_[That’s impossible. We couldn’t have made it that far.]_

“That’s what I thought, too, but apparently we did.”

_[No. We are not even halfway there.]_

She blinked. “I don’t know how to explain it. It’s there. I saw it. I touched.” She couldn’t help the smile that pushed the corners of her lips up. “And guess what? We are going home.”

She relayed the confrontation to him, carefully avoiding the subject of her own fate, she just settled on fifty-fifty. Either it worked or not. It wasn’t much of a stretch. It was what mattered anyway. The frown on his forehead deepened as she went on and – by the end – he was watching her though furious, slanted eyes _._

 _[No,]_ he said when she got to the end.

“What do you mean?! This is our chance; this is what we’ve been waiting for!”

 _[No,]_ he repeated, with even more apparent, angry flair. _[It’s too dangerous.]_

“Don’t be dramatic, at least it gives us a shot, it’s better than nothing and you know it.”

_[You are not ready. It takes too much energy and you’re still too weak. You will die.]_

She should’ve expected he wouldn’t be so easily fooled. “Now you’re just hurting my feelings.”

 _[It has nothing to do with your feelings. I’m not doing this.]_ He tried getting up, propping himself against the root, but his hand slipped on the slick bark and he plopped back down, gracelessly. He hung down his head with a sharp exhale. Rainwater dripped from his wet hair onto his chest and hands folded in his lap.

She placed her hand on his shoulder, her thumb resting in the hollow above his collarbone. “Loki,” she said softly, “you’ve got to let me do this.”

He slowly shook his head, the movement wavery but confident at the same time. She wasn’t offering him anything more than what he should have received without having to work for it – a chance to _live_ – yet he still refused.

She pulled him closer again and he allowed her.

She had to do it.

She had to do it _now_ , before she managed to convince herself otherwise, before Loki talked her out of it, before the creature changed its mind. Before it was too late. She pressed her lips to the top of his head. “I’m sorry,” she mouthed and squeezed her eyes shut, focusing on the link, ignoring his attempts to struggle, to get away. His hand gripped her wrist, trying to pry it off, but his strength was too far gone for that.

Her core gleamed and grew and her fingers wedged into his flesh, until the light was all she could see, and her entire body pulsed with the energy pouring into her, filling her with the familiar sense of extasy. A splash of color burst in her chest and burned in her lungs, then the world flicked sideways.

And then, as if with a flip of a switch, there was only darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is where the story ended originally. 
> 
> Yep, I used to be as heartless as that. 
> 
> Not that what follows is any kinder.


	29. Terra firma

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which a welcome change of perspective is occurring.

A sharp stab of pain in his ribs roused him back to consciousness. He lifted his head and opened his eyes, not without a dose of diffidence. A sight of flat, porous, gray stone welcomed him.

Concrete. Did that mean… _Damn._

A tip of an armored boot connected with his side again and his arms were wrestled from under him and bent behind his back. He struggled, weakly and without much confidence.

“Hey, boss, this one’s still alive!” yelled the man holding him down. Another pair of boots appeared in front of his face and their utilitarian, militaristic design would unmistakably inform Loki where he found himself at, if the language weren’t enough of a tell.

_Midgard._

He braced himself for another kick, but it didn’t come. Instead, fingers twisted into his hair and yanked, peeling his face off the pavement.

The owner of the fingers whistled. “The fucker has even brought his own restraints.”

Loki’s eyes darted around. It was a public plaza of some kind, surrounded by a park, or a garden. A throng of onlookers was held back by a cordon of soldiers and military vehicles, far off the scene, behind the line of threes. He cranked his neck as far as the grip would allow but couldn’t see a sign of Natasha anywhere. He knew what that meant, he tried to warn her, to stop her, but she didn’t listen. A seed of grief in his gut sprouted and grew, wrapping around his insides and clutching his heart.

He tried to move his hands, in an instinct, just to ask, just to be sure, but they were pinned in place. Soon, he heard a ratchet and metal cuffs bit into his wrists, trapping them in an uncomfortable position.

“C’mon, let’s get the show on the road, the crowd’s getting too noisy and Sitwell will have our assess if we end up on YouTube again,” said one of the soldiers and the other murmured something in confirmation, the words too low for Loki to discern, thus making just about as much sense.

He got pulled up. He had to rely on the strength of his captors to not fall flat on his face when they dragged him into one of the vehicles and unceremoniously stashed him inside, his legs too weak to carry his weight. A third soldier appeared from the booth, holding another set of cuffs. Loki hardly had it in him to react when it was locked around his ankles, while the other two men secured him in place with straps, broad strips of sturdy fabric crossing his chest, waist, tights, and running across his calves. The last strap went around his neck, pinning him to the wall and crushing his windpipe against the metal in his throat. Along with the one squeezing his chest, it limited him to shallow, wheezy breaths.

He wiggled in place, to alleviate some pressure the position was putting on his hands, still bound behind his back, but only managed to crush his throat further, so he stopped trying. His head was already swimming from exhaustion and now the limited supply of oxygen made it hard to keep his eyes open.

One of the soldiers seated himself on a bench on the opposite side of the hold. He removed his face guard and regarded Loki with open, unhindered contempt, a smirk twisting the homely, angular face.

Loki met his gaze but couldn’t muster more than that. It felt like a good opportunity for a murderous glare, but he couldn’t call forth enough hatred to make it believable. There was no anger to fuel it. The bone-deep fatigue was all that was left, and, when the engine roared to life finally and the vehicle started rolling, he just averted his eyes, training them at the stained metal floor instead.

\---

He wasn’t sure how long they’ve travelled for or which direction they went. The vehicle’s hold had no windows, and he was floating at the edge of consciousness the whole time, too tired to pay attention to his surroundings, too tired to think, to plan. 

They placed a blindfold over his eyes before he was dragged out of the car. They hauled him across some open space then – according to how the pattern of footsteps changed – into a building. He couldn’t rally much outrage when they forced him down onto a rolling table and strapped him in place, but he did his best to hide a sigh of relief when his hands were released from the cuffs and pinned down at his sides instead. There was a tether around his neck again, but that one was made of metal, didn’t fit so tightly, and allowed him to breathe. He knew, somewhere at the back of his jumbled mind, that he shouldn’t feel grateful for that, but couldn’t help it.

They rolled him further and further into the bowels of the building, the progress marked by the ratchet of the trolley’s wheels and shadows crossing the thin strip of light he could still see below the bottom edge of the blindfold. At least until the procession stopped – to enter an elevator as it turned out a moment later – and someone adjusted the piece of cloth over his eyes, plunging him into total darkness.

He was escorted into a room with a quick exchange of a few hushed commands he couldn’t quite catch, the steps shuffled out and the door shut with a loud thud, then a metallic clink of a lock followed.

They didn’t release the manacles that pinned him to the trolley, didn’t even remove the blindfold, so he couldn’t be sure he was alone in the cell. Because it was a cell, that he _was_ sure about. What else could it be? And, if he was truly alone, there were certainly mechanical eyes of cameras aimed at him, watching tirelessly. Not that it changed anything. He was too weak to free himself, even the meager mortal restraints were an effective measure against him now, and – if that alone weren’t an insurmountable obstacle – without his magic he couldn’t hope to escape the room, lest the entire building, which was, presumably, swarming with armed mortals. He couldn’t even stand up without support anymore.

He should be thinking, he should be scheming, plotting his escape and his revenge, but he couldn’t get his thoughts in order. A vague notion that he should be more aware than he was crossed his mind, but he let it go for now, too preoccupied with the buzz of his trapped body going numb and the shapeless outlines floating at the edges of his vision that his weary mind produced, deprived of visual stimuli.

He let his eyelids fall, just for a little while.

\---

The darkness confused him for a moment when he woke up and a spike of panic shoot through his nerves when he tried to move and his limbs strained under the grip of restraints, before he remembered where he was.

Some unspecified prison cell on Midgard.

The realization didn’t improve his mood.

He couldn’t tell how much time has passed. He was still tired, but the feeling has been his constant companion for days now and it didn’t say a lot. No one came to see him yet, not to bark questions or orders, nor to inflict more pain. Perhaps this was all there was going to be. They just left him here to die, locked away safely so he couldn’t be a threat. Well, they could’ve saved themselves the trouble and just leave him where they found him, on that plaza; it wouldn’t take that long anyway.

The thought should perhaps unnerve him, but it did not. He wasn’t afraid of death. He hasn’t been in a long while. Not after finding himself in a situation where he was absolutely certain, without a hint of doubt, that he would die, time after time. No, it was always the continuous existence that turned to be the less pleasant option.

Yet there was one regret, an awful sense of _loss_ , that rang louder than all the other thoughts, constantly trying to push itself to the foreground.

_Natasha._

He didn’t need much of his usual wit to know. Loki himself, with all his experience and at his strongest and most powerful, would struggle with channeling that much energy and it would leave him bedridden for days if he did so without preparation. She was a mortal. An ingenious, talented, strong one, but still a mortal, and a novice in mystic arts. He never taught her proper mental discipline. She never stood a chance.

If only he could go back and shake some sense into her, tell her one more time to leave him and save herself. Using harsher words. Be more convincing. But he couldn’t. And, deep down, he knew she wouldn’t listen anyway.

She was stubborn. Stupidly brave.

And, as impossible as it seemed, she _cared_.

Loki wasn’t sure at what point in his life he understood that he couldn’t trust anyone to look out for him. The awareness slowly creeped in – with every judgement the All-Father cast, with every turn of the All-Mother’s eyes when he was still foolish enough to look up to her for salvation, with every patronizing remark from Thor, with every snigger from Thor’s companions Loki once upon a time considered friends – until he just knew.

It hurt but there was solace in that knowledge, too. The reality made sense that way. He was alone and there was no one he could count on but himself.

Then that part turned out to be a lie too.

His very skin was a lie, his entire existence was nothing but a well-crafted ruse. And how he could trust someone he didn’t even know? How could he trust a monster?

And so, in his exile, Loki did what he always has done. He took the shattered pieces of his old life and rearranged them around that new realization. There was nothing he could be sure of. Nothing was permanent. There was no one he could depend on, not even his own treacherous self.

It was a cruel truth, but it was the truth nonetheless, and he found cold comfort in it when there was nothing else.

Then she came and upturned that worldview, shattered it once again, reeved it inside-out. Reawakened the awkward mixture of fondness and longing, the warm, lonesome sentiment he didn’t know he remembered, the same one that hovered at the edges of his childhood memories, when the world still seemed simple and fair and welcoming. When he still thought himself normal. Whole.

 _It will only end with another disaster, fool,_ his instincts screamed at him. _It always does. You will turn around and there will be a knife in your back, when you least expect it, when you’re at your most vulnerable._

The call was irresistible at first.

But then – with every thoughtful word, with every reassuring touch, with every smile that hid no ridicule behind, with every selfless act – it grew quieter and quieter, until he could hear it no more.

She had full right to hate him for the damage he’s done to her world, condemn him for the pain and death he caused, pity the weakened shadow of himself he had become.

Yet she did not.

And now she was gone, sacrificing her life for his own, an exchange so unfair it made his skin crawl. The value of his existence has run out a long time ago. It came to the inevitable conclusion, he served his purpose and now only the leftover momentum kept him going, without much reason or goal. If he ended on Iz’lu alone, he wouldn’t even move from the Bifröst site, and not only because he wouldn’t be able to. He would see no point.

That was an idle divagation though. Without Natasha, he wouldn’t get that far. No, he would end up on the Sanctuary. Or it would be one of the moons that Ebony Maw would take him to. And then the dance would start all over again and continue until he turned into a mindless husk, ready to be remolded into whatever The Mad Titan desired him to be. There would be no promise of escape, nor mercy of quick death.

She saved him from that fate. That alone was a boon he would never be able to repay, yet she still offered more, after all Loki did to drive her away. And now she was dead because of it.

A sense of injustice welled inside him, until his throat tightened, and his chest heaved. He wanted to scream, but he couldn’t do even that. All he could do was lie there in the dark and wait for whatever was to come next.

\---

He must’ve fallen asleep again, because the next thing he registered was the blindfold being abruptly ripped away from his face. The fluorescent light blinded him immediately and he squeezed his eyes shut.

“Well, well, well, not so cocky now, are we?” drawled a voice above and another laughed, somewhere to his right. “Let’s see what we can do about it.”

Loki opened his eyes, just a snitch, slowly allowing them to get used to the illumination. A round face of a white-clad mortal, adorned with wiry spectacles, hovered above him. Loki recognized the type. A medicine doctor, or a scientist of some kind. The notion didn’t bode well. It was not going to be an interrogation. They didn’t want him for his knowledge, his flesh offered more value.

There were three soldiers dressed in full combat gear with face guards raised, standing back. And a man in a sleek suit, further in the corner, away from the circle of light cast by the lamp above the table.

The scientist’s hands approached Loki’s face, and he jerked aside, twisting his neck to get away. It was a vain attempt, in the end the band around his throat held him in place while foreign fingers explored the gag. Loki gritted his teeth on the metal, ignored the indignation that flushed his cheeks and yielded. What other option was there? Odin’s spell sent a warning at the incursion, but he could disregard it, for now. The mortal should soon realize the futility of the endeavor.

Natasha never touched the gag again once she learned about its effects, not even when she could use it to her defense as he was attacking her, haunted by nightmares.

Just thinking about her hurt.

Mortal’s fingers urged him to turn his head and he obeyed, allowing the indiscretion to continue. The spell flared up again, the metal shifted and burned in his throat, and he couldn’t quite hold back a wince.

“A little touchy, I see,” the scientist chirped, right into Loki’s ear, and jabbed some sort of tool between the plates. “Now, now, don’t fret, we will get that thing off in no time.”

Loki huffed out a derisive chuckle, but his breath caught in his throat when the gag punished him again, pushing down and piercing his tongue until he tasted blood.

The tool clanked on the side table and the scientist retrieved a different instrument, a cylinder, perhaps a thumb in diameter, the end aimed at Loki’s face culminating with a circular, toothed blade. There was a click and the blade whirred to life.

Loki’s eyes widened in terror and he scrambled to get away, his limbs straining against the manacles, fruitlessly. The table rocked haphazardly, forcing the mortal to hold it down.

“Come on, it’s just a tiny dremel tool, nothing scary, see?” the human droned in a tone one uses to speak to a scared child, and waved the tool in front of Loki’s eyes, as if it improved the situation in any way. Loki pulled on the cuffs on his wrists yet again. If he could only tell them…

The scientist hung down his arms. “Okay, I have no time for this. You,” he inclined his chin at one of the soldiers, “hold his head. Let’s get this over with.”

The guard obeyed and strong hands gripped the sides of Loki’s head, clamping it in place. He made a last-ditch attempt to squirm away, arching his back off the table and twisting his limbs. _No, please, don’t._ The small circular saw touched the metal above the angle of his jaw and the world faded to insignificance, engulfed by the wave of searing pain that exploded at the base of his skull, muffling his senses and shredding his thoughts into disjointed twines of nonsense.

He screamed, then, and blood bubbled in his throat, threatening to drown him.

It was an eternity later that the buzz finally subsided. The hands were gone, but it didn’t matter, for all Loki could do was lie there, panting out wet, strangled breaths as the echoes of agony circled through his body. The voices that came to him were suppressed, as if heard through a thick veil, and carried little meaning.

“What’s wrong with him?”

“Hell if I know.”

“Solving this shit is literally the only reason you’re here.”

“I have no more data than you do right now, sir. I’ll need to attach some sensors and run more tests and scans, to even see what exactly happens here.”

“Whatever it is that you need to do, I suggest you do it quickly,” there was a shuffle of steps and the door lock clicked open, “and hook him to an IV or something, we don’t want him keeling over just yet.”

“Yes, sir.”

The door opened, then closed with a thud. There were more steps and a hand gripped Loki’s chin and tipped his head up. The touch was mindful and felt almost gentle compared to what Loki’s just experienced.

“Can you understand me?” the scientist asked.

Loki nodded, faintly. It was the extent of his mobility right now.

“You knew this was going to happen.”

It wasn’t a question, but Loki nodded again.

“Is there any way to stop it from happening when we try to remove the device again?”

The thought of going through the same ordeal so soon pierced his brain with a fresh spike of panic. He shook his head.

The scientist sighed and turned to one of the guards. Loki couldn’t say if it was the same one that was ordered to hold him earlier, they all looked the same. “Go get Bodoni. Tell him to grab a CVC kit and get PN setup ready.”

The soldier stood there, unmoving.

“Do you need me to write it down for you?”

“Yes, sir.”

The scientist mumbled something under his breath, but still pulled out a small notepad and scribbled his instructions. Loki trained his eyes on the writing utensils as they disappeared in the apron’s pocket. If he was allowed to communicate, he would tell the man about the spell and how it worked, if just to spare himself another round.

The guard left and the scientist turned to Loki again. If he noticed the vehement stare, he didn’t let it show.

“Don’t worry, we will figure this out,” he said, then fastened the blindfold back over Loki’s eyes, submerging him in darkness again.

\---

There was a rustle of movement around, as the facility staff set up whatever equipment hid under the mysterious acronyms. Then there were more hands on him and sharp needles stabbing his flesh. There used to be a time when such primitive instruments would stand no chance to even pierce his skin, but even his natural body defenses required energy he no longer possessed and the little that was left was redirected to keeping him alive. He didn’t even fight it. The resistance would only tire him out more.

No one spoke to him or removed the cloth from his eyes again, and they talked between themselves in hushed tones, speaking words not meant for his ears. He could still make some of it out, but it mattered little, for most of it was a jargon he wasn’t familiar with.

Then they left, leaving only a low burr of a cryptic machine behind. Loki paid it no attention at first, but it was the only thing that was _there_ and soon the buzz permeated his every thought and hovered at the edge of every idea that popped into his mind, dragging him down, pulling apart the hems of reality.

Was this supposed to be a form of torture on its own or just a side effect, and the purpose of the machinery was yet to be discovered? Was there another way they could use it to hurt him?

His eyelids grew heavy and he allowed them to fall.

\---

The next attempt they made at removing the gag was observed by more people, as many as the small, windowless cell could hold, it seemed. Most of them were scientists, if one were to go by their attire, but there were a couple of men is suits. One woman, too. Her hair was an obviously artificial, bright red. The facsimile still reminded Loki of Natasha and the memory burned keenly in his hollowed-out brain.

Electrodes were attached to his forehead, arms and chest and a crown of wires was placed on his temples, while he studied the machine, as it was the first time he was allowed his sight after the device was installed. A box made of bright plastic sat mounted to a pole that could be rolled from place to place, just like the table they used to restrain him. A series of tubes connected to it from bags of milky liquid hanging above and a single, thicker one ran down and into to an incision in his chest, right below his right collarbone. There were labels on the bags, but Loki couldn’t see them from his angle, neither he could read the display on the apparatus itself.

He knew it had to contain some sort of a tranquillizing agent, for they stopped the machine before the procedure and he could feel his mind clearing with every heartbeat, the effects obvious now that they’ve started to subside. Most likely a form of nutrition, too. He was still alive, after all, if not much more than that.

A fishnet of cables draped over the metal of the gag came next, then two padded braces were placed on each side of his neck, bolted to the table and pulled close with a strap, clamping his head as in a vise. More straps were buckled over his chest, waist, and thighs, removing almost any wiggle room he might have otherwise exploited.

One of the mortals produced an electric drill. Loki braced himself, curling his hands into fists and biting down on the metal but it still didn’t prepare him for the sheer agony that followed.

It was worse, this time.

And when it was finally over, it left him but a convulsing, mindless mass of quivering flesh.

Onlookers murmured between themselves and slowly drifted away from the cell, until only one remained and it took Loki way too long to recognize him as the man from before, the one with the glasses. He came closer and squeezed Loki’s shoulder.

“You did great,” he said.

Meeting mortal’s gaze was almost an impossible task, but Loki still tried his best, filling his eyes with a silent plea.

 _Just kill me already_ , it said.

The light hurt, so he actually welcomed the blindfold this time.

\---

They haven’t removed the extra straps, although the mysterious someone who came to turn the machine back on a while later did loosen up the one on his chest, almost as an afterthought. He would have thanked the stranger if he could.

He could not, so he settled on reveling in the simple privilege of filling his lungs with air, for there wasn’t many of those that he was still granted.

\---

“It is your lucky day,” a voice spoke, the one Loki learned to recognize as Unnamed Guard Number Three. He caught up to the hierarchy quickly enough. The men in suits – SHIELD agents, he assumed – held the main decisive power, then came the scientists, with the guards at the bottom, as enforcers. While the first two groups did interact with Loki on occasion, the soldiers never did, unless they were directly commanded to manhandle him. Something has changed, or so it would seem. Not that it mattered, of course, he had no means to respond anyway, having been silenced twice over. “You’ve got a visitor.”

Loki’s brows furrowed, brushing against the cloth over his eyes, but before he could puzzle out the mystery the metal manacles clicked open, the straps unbuckled and he was yanked up, the movement tugging painfully at the length of tubing inserted into his vein. Unnamed Guard Number Three moved to unhook it from the machine, leaving Loki without support.

After days ( _weeks_?) of being trapped in one position, held down by restraints, his body momentarily felt weightless, as if floating in zero-gravity. Just for a heartbeat, before he crumbled back onto the table like a sack of tubers. The guards sniggered while his cheeks burned in humiliation. Could one get more thoroughly debased?

The answer was ‘yes’, apparently.

They dragged him up, away from the table and out of the room, and Loki wondered idly why they even bothered; they could roll the trolley whenever they wanted him anyway. But deep down he knew why. It was a show of strength. He wasn’t restrained and only the hands of his mortal guards held him in place as he was hauled through the corridors of the facility, yet he couldn’t do more about it than he could when he was still strapped down to that table. He was pacified and no longer a threat and they were making sure he knew it, too.

They crossed a couple gateways, the doors opening and closing behind with mechanical whooshes, before he was tossed rudely to the floor.

“Undress,” Unnamed Guard Number Five ordered and – when Loki took too long to react – accented the command with a perfunctory kick to the stomach. Loki curled up and hugged his midsection, but the damage was done. “Or not, I don’t care.”

His hands were seized away from his body and a new set of manacles was clasped on his wrists, then he was yanked up by the attached chain, until he was forced to balance on his toes. They made a quick job at stripping him from his breeches and underclothes, then the blindfold was pried away too.

As his eyes adjusted to the light, Loki took in his surroundings. It was a wet room of some kind, the walls and the floor covered in beige tiles, instead of the dull, gray concrete of his cell. It wasn’t hard to guess why he was here, and the answer became even more evident when Number Three reentered the scene, a thick hose dragging on the floor behind him. A jet of ice-cold water hit Loki’s exposed abdomen, the pressure high enough to knock him off balance and force air out of his lungs. He desperately tried to regain his footing, to relieve the strain on his shoulders and lessen the bite of the shackles on his wrists, but Number Three circled around, squandering any progress Loki made towards his goal.

In the end, there was not a single area of his body that got spared the watery lashes, not even his face, and he was left dangling slackly by his wrists, torn between coughing, spluttering and desperately swallowing the droplets of water that made it thought the gag and into his parched throat.

For once, Loki was grateful for his Jötnar heritage, for he would indubitably be shaking from cold too if it weren’t for that.

Guard Number Three left the room, leaving Number Five to keep watch. He stood there, bulky arms crossed on his chest, and surveyed Loki’s frail form with a sneer, then he scoffed, pulled an appliance out of his pocket – one of those communication devices that most Midgardians carried these days – and aimed it at Loki. “Smile,” he mocked, then laughed at his own joke.

 _He will be the first to die_ , Loki decided, _if I ever get away from this place_.

Number Three returned with a bundle of grey cloth folded under his arm and Loki noted, with a sense of abashed relief, that they would not be dragging him to meet whoever it was he was supposed meet stark naked, after all.

His idle deliberations as to who this mysterious visitor might be got cut short before Loki reached a conclusion, when the chain holding his wrists was released and he crumpled to the floor.

Number Three tossed the bunch of clothes onto the tiles next to Loki’s face. “Put it on.”

Loki tried, but they lost their patience when he was halfway through his second attempt to heave himself from the ground and onto his knees. Number Five held him in place, the grip of his gloved hands leaving red marks on Loki’s ashen skin, while Number Three pulled the clothes on. It was a two-piece set of simple garments, sewn from thick, rough cloth, plain, save for the SHIELD logo printed on the chest that would forgo all doubt as to which institution was holding him prisoner, if Loki still had any.

The shirt hung on his frame loosely, the trousers were too short, and they didn’t provide him with shoes nor any other article of clothing, bare the blindfold, that was refastened over his eyes promptly. It was left on the floor before the hosing began and the cold dampness did nothing to improve the sensation of having one’s eyes covered.

\---

They didn’t return him to his cell but led him into a different room, divided from the level he was on with a lengthy elevator ride. He was then seated in a metal chair and his arms were wrenched behind the backrest and locked there with a length of chain, his ankles soon following suit. Loki’s heart sunk. Whoever was here to meet him, wasn’t interested in allowing him to talk.

The guards vacated the room, leaving Loki alone, presumably. He slumped and hung down his head, too tired to hold it up. Water dripped from his still wet hair and soaked his coarse raiment. His entire body felt sore and raw. He shifted, cautiously, trying to find a position that would put the least pressure on the prickling skin of his bottom and thighs and wouldn’t require him to pull on his twisted arms at the same time but there seemed to be no good compromise.

He was alone for quite some time, long enough for his limbs to lose feeling again, before the door opened and a single set of footsteps entered the room. The footfalls were heavy and confident and there was a creak of well-kept leather as the mysterious visitor moved. They stopped a few steps away from him and did not speak for a long moment.

Loki flexed his fingers, setting the chains to clinking, if only to fill the room with anything but the uncomfortable, pertinacious silence.

“So, Loki,” the guest spoke, and Loki froze. He knew that voice. “How’s the _real power_ working out for you now?”

_SHIELD’s Director Fury._

The faint spark of hope that burned at the back of his mind fizzled out and died. What did he expect? With Natasha gone there was no one in the whole infinite universe who would care for his fate. _Were you waiting for Thor to come crashing through the roof of the room and haul you to Asgard, you fool? Or Odin himself, perchance, coming to smite the mortals for their transgressions and tell you that your crimes are forgotten, and you can go home?_

Loki huffed out a suppressed laugh and rolled his shoulders, the slight movement sending a storm of needles down his numb arms.

“What? No witty retort?” Fury goaded. “No sophisticated insult?”

Loki straightened his back, gritted his teeth and took in a long breath, because it was all he could do. He couldn’t even glare. Perhaps that was for the best though; Fury would grow bored of gloating quickly if he got no reaction.

There was a sound of footsteps again as Fury started marching, back and forth, through the room. “You see, you’re no longer my responsibility, so I don’t even need to be here. But when I heard you’ve given up, I had to come and see for myself.”

The notion churned in Loki’s stomach and rattled in his brain. Did he give up, truly, or was he just waiting for his moment to strike back? Was there even a difference between the two?

“I would be lying if I said the sight doesn’t please me,” Fury scoffed, his voice dripping dark satisfaction. “I’m not a vindictive man but you made it very personal when you broke my stuff and threatened my people. You cost me not one, but _two_ of my best agents.”

If Loki needed any more confirmation that she was gone, here it was.

The pattern of the footsteps changed, and Loki realized he has been inadvertently following the direction they were coming from thus far. They stopped right in front of Loki and he tensed, holding his breath.

“So,” Fury’s voice sounded right next to Loki’s ear and the blindfold was pushed up, just a bit, so only one of Loki’s eyes was uncovered, mirroring human’s own mismatched eyesight. Even the dim light burned his retina, but Loki held man’s gaze firmly, nonetheless. “Is there something you have to say in your defense?”

Loki’s eyes widened in a momentary disbelief and he worked to control his expression. This might be his chance; he might yet get an opportunity to salvage this, tell his side of the story, warn the mortals about the incoming danger. Prove himself valuable. Escape more pain. He nodded, vehemently, his eye still on Fury.

The mortal laughed and removed his hand. “See? That’s your problem,” he said. The cloth slid back down, blinding Loki again. “You think the rules do not apply to you and you can always slither your way out, without consequences. This is _not_ how we do things, here on Earth.

“Good news is, in this particular corner of the globe we have this thing called the constitution, which gives every human the right to defend themselves in a fair trial.” He paused for dramatic effect. “Bad news? You do not qualify, and no one here gives a single flying fuck about your excuses.”

Fury turned and moved towards the door, stopped mid-way, and clicked his heels. “Do enjoy your stay, your highness.”

\---

It couldn’t be long after Fury left that they came for him again. First thing they did was inject something into the port in his chest that made his mind barely register his own body. He only numbly recognized harsh hands pulling his arms away from the chair, twisting them behind his back and binding them there tightly, wrist to wrist and elbow to elbow, or the strain in his shoulders that followed. His legs were bound too, at ankles and knees. Then someone pushed some sort of a muffling device over his ears and the audible part of the world followed the visual one and stopped existing altogether.

They didn’t lead him back to his cell this time either, he was shoved into a box instead, or perhaps a cage, too narrow to lie down or even stretch his legs and too short to stand in, were he still capable of doing that, which he was not. Even seated, he had to keep his head bowed or else it would bounce against the roof of the containment. The air smelled of moisture and rot and soon grew hot and stale and the ribbed wall behind his back oscillated and rocked as it moved, and Loki chuckled to himself at the realization. He was no longer worthy of a proper convoy. They just wrapped him as a bundle and stashed him in a crate, like a piece of merchandise.

Or a relic.

Maybe that’s what Odin should have done, ages ago.

None of this would happen if he did.

Loki laughed again.

It felt almost like being back in the Void; a dark, unending nothingness without sight or sound, only the disconnected echo of pain in his tied-up limbs destroying the illusion. Coming out on the other end, as the drug effects slowly wore off, was similar too.

He could remember now that he had a body and that his body had senses, they just did not work. He wriggled and turned, trying to loosen up the bindings, if just a little bit, just to get the circulation going, but whoever fastened those, they knew exactly what they were doing and Loki’s efforts left him out of breath, sweating and just as tightly bound as before. He did succeed at knocking off the muffling device – two padded cups over his ears connected with a band running over his head that secured with a strap under his chin – and managed to slide the blindfold away from his eyes by rubbing his face against his knees. It didn’t change much about his situation, but he could now hear an engine working in the background that accompanied the vibrations of the walls of his confinement and see a thin line of light seeping under the lid of the crate. Because it was a crate. Was this a regular treatment for prisoners on Midgard or one mortals reserved just for the worst offenders?

The box rocked and Loki’s stomach lurched when the vehicle hit a bump. Or perhaps a pocket of turbulent air; the engine whine sounded more like those of the mortal flying vessels than their land automobiles. The suspicion was confirmed shortly after that, when the plane dipped down and started to descend, the easily perceptible downward motion creating a sense of weightlessness. Further shaking followed, more violent this time, tossing him against the walls. Unable to hold onto anything, he resorted to curling up at the bottom of the crate, pressing his back to the wall and bracing himself by digging his heels into the opposite side of the container. There was one final jerk as wheels touched the ground, the plane rocked, settled with a pneumatic hiss and the engines winded down. 

The silence that followed was soon dispersed by heavy footsteps, quickly closing in. Loki expected the lid to open, then, but it did not. Instead, the crate was lifted and then tossed, without much care, onto what he soon figured out was a cart of some kind. He was getting the full treatment, it seemed.

Something hit the crate right next to Loki’s head and the resulting sound rang in his ears and reverberated in his bones.

“You think the alien fuck is still alive?” a low, male voice asked, thick with accent he couldn’t place, its owner probably not aware that Loki could hear him, or just not caring.

“I sure hope so,” some other voice answered, “why should the idiots from twenty-six get all the fun?”

A choir of laughter followed, and Loki couldn’t help but flinch. So, that was the kind of company he found himself in. It didn’t bode well for his future. He needed to find a way out soon or else…

_Or else what? How are you going to do that? You can’t use magic, you can’t speak, you’re weak as a newborn babe and you can barely wiggle your fingers._

Loki sighed. He would find a solution, one way or another.

For now, he focused on not hissing in pain each time the cart hit an obstacle, which grew harder and harder to achieve the further they progressed. A long elevator ride down offered a period of respite, but soon it continued, until the procession stopped, and the crate was unloaded, just as delicately as it was first put on the cart. It toppled to the side, tossing Loki against the wall again, the impact catching him off-guard and threatening to dislocate the joint in his shoulder. Then, at last, the lid was pried open and Loki tumbled out gracelessly, landing on the hard concrete floor with a dull thud, face first. He rolled onto his side and regarded the small group of men standing in an irregular circle above him. They wore the exact same unmarked, black uniforms as the guards in the previous facility, but there was something that made them look a lot less orderly. Most had their face masks removed or just hanging loosely around their necks, some were missing gloves or had their sleeves rolled up, and that was enough to tell Loki they enjoyed a lot less strict oversight from their superiors.

That also didn’t spell anything good.

“It looks like we have a troublemaker in our hands, boys,” said one of the guards, reaching for the muffling device, now abandoned at the bottom of the crate. The man was tall, perhaps taller than Loki, and a lot broader. His hair was braided into thick dreadlocks, reaching below the jawline, a hairstyle ill-fitting for a member of the military and not meshing well with his fair skin. It wasn’t what caught Loki’s attention though, the pure indifference in his voice did. “How about we teach him some manners?”

First kick came from behind, while Loki was still ruminating over the exact implications of mortal’s words and gave him no time to react when it landed on his ribs. More followed. He coiled and tried to make himself as small of a target as possible, but it didn’t help all that much. He couldn’t even protect his head, bound as he was.

Before long they got bored with kicking and turned to the batons each carried at their sides, the blows interlaced with insults and threats Loki didn’t even bother to process. They knew what they were doing, too, for as much as the punches were painful, each and every single one sending a new wave of agony though his already sore body, none managed to knock him out and – after they were finally done – he was left bleeding and breathless, but still conscious.

The beating took the last remnants of resistance out of him and he just stared vacantly as they dragged him up and onto a table. It would be a mirror image of the one he spent the last days strapped to, if not for how it was bolted firmly to the floor. The ties were cut, and his extremities burned as if set afire when blood was allowed to flow once again. Then the manacles were back, thicker, and more crudely made, the sharp edges biting into his flesh as they were fastened in place. The straps were back too, only this time he was not granted any slack on the one crossing his chest, it was buckled as tight as it would give, until he felt the bones of his ribcage creak and shift. His vision started to tunnel and darken even before a new piece of cloth was placed over his eyes, thicker and broad enough to reach the tip of his nose and cover his forehead, then a length of cord – or something to that effect – was fastened around it, to hold it in place and make it impossible to slip off. It was tied so tightly he could see stars under his eyelids and the pressure it applied to his temples made his head throb with every beat of his heart.

A few curt commands were shouted, but Loki had trouble assigning meaning to the words and only realized what was happening when the damned machine, the one designed to pump poison into his veins – or one just like that – was turned on and started buzzing.

Then they left, the heavy metal door screeching on its rusty hinges as it closed, leaving Loki there, fighting for each breath, every fiber of his body raw like a fresh wound and pulsing in pain.

In his last semi-coherent moment, before the drug flooded his bloodstream and shattered every thought to jagged pieces, Loki realized one thing about the place.

It was not a cell.

It was a tomb.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm going to leave it on that for a while. I still have about a dozen written chapters, but they are subject to small adjustments until I finish the plot line I'm currently working on, so don't expect a new chapter immediately. We are going on a less regular update schedule now.
> 
> Also, yes. This is literally 7,5k words of pure whump. I'm not proud of what I'm doing with my free time.


	30. Wonderland

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the things only seemingly go back to the way they used to be before.

The heartrate monitor beeped in an even, lazy tempo, somewhere at the edge of consciousness, gently poking the fluffy mist clouding her mind. She shifted and the soft mattress under her body shifted with her. She opened her eyes. The lights were dimmed in the room but still bright enough for her to recognize where she was. A hospital. On Earth.

She made it. They made it! But where was…

“Loki,” she croaked. Her throat was dry, and her tongue felt numb.

There was a blur of motion and Clint sprung up from where he was dozing off in a chair by the window, a forgotten book falling from his lap with a thud. He was by her bedside in no time.

“Hello, Nat,” he said with a wide smile. “The good doctor told me you might wake up today. I started to think she was full of shit, but it looks like she was right, after all.” His smile broadened and she found herself smiling back. She was sure she would never see him again and yet here she was.

“Where’s…” she started, and her voice gave up, sending her into a coughing fit. There was a cup with a straw sticking from it on the bedside table and she reached for it, but Clint was faster.

He pushed a button on the side of the bed, raising the top part a bit. “Here you go,” he said, holding the cup out for her and guiding the straw between her lips. “Better?”

She swallowed the last of the water and nodded.

“Want some more? There’s a water distributor just…”

“No. In a moment. Where’s Loki?”

Clint squinted his eyes at her. “You don’t need to worry about him anymore. You’re safe, I am here and I this time I won’t allow him anywhere near you.”

The tension growing behind her eyes lessened. Loki was alive then and that was what mattered, for now. It meant the light ghost creature thing came through on its word _._

 _Hmm._ She never asked it what exactly it was, or its name, or even if it had any. It saved Loki’s life – saved them both, apparently – and she still had no way to address it, even in her thoughts. “This is not what I’m asking. Where is he?”

“In some dark, cold cell, hopefully,” Clint said with a smirk and she felt an urge to punch him. She bit on her lip until it subsided. It wasn’t Clint’s fault. He had no idea. “SHIELD scrapped him off the pavement when you crashed down in Central Park and they’ve been holding him ever since.”

“Have they called for Thor? He needs to take that muzzle off!”

“No one has seen Thor since two days after you disappeared. He said he is going to search for answers in Asgard or some shit, took the Tesseract ride home and that’s the last we’ve seen of him.”

She glared.

“Don’t worry, I’m sure they’ve figured it out by now,” he smirked. “Good thinking, by the way, to keep the creep gagged, I imagine it made him a lot more docile. I would’ve kept the chains too, but something’s gotta give, am I right?”

She ran her fingers along the edge of the blanket. It was soft and had a colorful, flowery pattern printed on it. Definitely not a standard issue hospital item, so Clint must’ve brought it over for her comfort. “Yes,” she hissed through clenched teeth. _Something’s gotta give_. She needed to be careful, or else she would be giving everyone a wrong idea. The last thing she wanted was Clint thinking Loki was mind-controlling her, directly or indirectly. The very notion seemed ridiculous to her right now, but Clint didn’t know what she knew and neither did SHIELD. And Loki might not be in a state to explain. Their interstellar jump went great, a lot better than she expected – she was alive after all – but there was no telling how it affected him, as worn away as he was. And she wasn’t entirely sure they’d even listen, without her there to corroborate the story.

“May I have some more water now?” she asked. “And something to eat, maybe?”

“Sure, but we will have to ask the doctors if it’s okay first.”

“Why?”

“I’m not a quack, so I might be dead wrong, but there got to be some dietary restrictions after so long without solids.”

She didn’t have much to eat in the last couple of days, that’s true, but it couldn’t be that bad, could it? Unless… “What do you mean?”

“You’ve been in a coma for three weeks, Nat. Close to four, actually. He really did a number on you.”

She gaped, her mind suddenly hollow. Four weeks. For four weeks Loki was stuck in some SHIELD cell while she was languishing in a hospital bed, unaware. “Go get my water,” she managed, and Clint finally dropped his stare, turned and left.

Four weeks. _Fuck._

She could feel it now. The dryness in her throat, the weakness of her unused muscles, how just sitting and talking made her winded. She raised her right arm. The splint was gone. She probed the area where the broken bone stuck through her skin, but it was smooth, like nothing has ever happened.

She was still at it when Clint returned.

“Yeah, they removed the cast a few days ago,” he said. “The doc was afraid they would have to rebreak it and put it back together at first, but it turned out you did a great job at setting the bone, for such a complicated fracture.”

“I didn’t do it,” she mumbled, “Loki did.”

Clint’s eyebrows rode up. “How did you make him?”

“I didn’t have to. He did it on his own. I was unconscious at the time.”

“Was this fucker the one to…”

“No, Clint, it was a tsunami. I got swept by a tsunami and I hit a tree.”

“A tsunami,” he repeated and stared at her blankly.

“Yep, one of those giant sea waves. The ones you get after earthquakes?”

“Where the hell did he take you? SHIELD had all their satellites searching for your gps signal for weeks, but it was like you’ve disappeared from the face of Earth.”

“I did.”

Clint regarded her with a frown. “Don’t tell me he kidnapped you and took you to some… what, other planet?”

“Yes, at least to that second part. Loki didn’t kidnap me. You were there, you saw what happened!”

Clint dragged over a chair from under the window and clapped down on it with a heavy sigh, his head down. “I don’t know what I saw. One moment we were flying, the next there’s a big fucking hole in the side of the plane and fireballs are flying and Loki drags you through that portal.”

“What happened after that?”

“Thor landed on the roof of the jet and he and Loki’s alien friend fought. I didn’t see much of it, because the moment Thor grabbed the ugly gray fuck and pulled him outside, the Quinjet plummeted down and I was kinda busy getting my ass out of there.”

“Who else…”

“Bennet, Simmons and Eno. We grabbed the chutes and jumped out. The rest was either unconscious or too slow and didn’t make it.” Clint paused and scratched his nose, his eyes down. “There was no time to save them, we got out the last possible second.”

“I’m sorry.”

“There was nothing you could do,” Clint said with a frown. “I should’ve known it’s going to end in another disaster. It couldn’t be anything else if Loki was involved. The bastard is bad news, no matter the context.”

“It wasn’t his fault either,” she said cautiously.

Clint studied her carefully, his gaze fixed on her eyes firmly, calculating, checking for the hints of blue.

“Listen, Clint…”

“What the hell happened out there, Nat? What the fuck did he do to you?”

“Nothing, he did nothing _to_ me.”

He grabbed her hand, still resting on the covers. “You can tell me. I know how it feels.”

 _You know nothing_. “I know,” she said and smiled. Clint’s hand felt uncomfortably warm. “I will, soon, I promise … I just have to get a few things in order first, okay?”

He nodded, unconvinced.

“I need a favor though.”

“Does it start with ‘get me’ and ends with ‘out of here’?” he asked with a smirk.

“You know me too well,” she laughed. He smiled back, got up and leaned in to kiss her. He never did that, not anymore. It was one of the _Laura_ things. She stopped him, a few inches away from her face, by placing fingers on his lips. “Chop, chop, we don’t have all day.”

“It’s the middle of the night, Natasha,” he said and left to search for the doctors.

\---

It took a solid hour of back-and-forth negotiations and getting (very annoyed) Fury on the phone, but in the end Clint was allowed to roll her out of the hospital, triumphantly. The sense of victory was only slightly diminished by the oversized “I love NY” tee shirt and yellow yoga pants she was wearing, as it were the least offensive articles of clothing available in the small twenty-four-seven convenience store on the other side of the street and Clint didn’t think about grabbing anything to wear from her apartment.

Clint’s car has been hauled away for illegal parking, and it apparently wasn’t the first time it happened since she ended in Presbyterian.

“What? Finding a space to park is even more of a nightmare now that everything is under construction,” he pointed out nonchalantly, as they were heading back to the main street to hail a taxi. “It was Stark’s car anyway. He can have it back from wherever the hell it was hauled to, if it’s not too much of a hassle. He can probably buy a new one every minute or something.”

She crooked her head. “Stark lent you his car?”

“One of his million cars, you mean? I wouldn’t say “lent’. ‘Didn’t explicitly forbid to take’ would be a more precise description.”

“What were you doing at Stark’s anyway?”

“Ugh, I kinda live there? My building got badly wrecked and got slated for demolition,” he said with a frown and Natasha mouthed a curse. As if he didn’t pay enough of a price. “I needed a place to crash, just for a few days, so I could find something else and Tony offered I can have one of his guest suites. It’s a proper suite, Nat. Like, you have a view over Manhattan from your bathtub!”

“It’s been more than a few days.”

Clint shrugged. “I don’t think he remembers I’m still there. _Do_ _not_ remind him. You can’t beat the rent rate of zero. Especially since I’ve been paying _your_ rent after you were gone. Seriously, you pay _that_ much for that shit place?”

“I like the neighborhood.”

“It’s probably the first time in history someone uttered that sentence thinking of Hoboken.”

“Why didn’t you just go home?”

“I went, right after SHIELD cleared me. And I stayed, for two weeks. But I couldn’t just sit on my ass and do nothing. You were missing and so much stuff still needed to be done.”

“So, what’s SHIELD up to nowadays?”

“Still clean-up, mostly. Stark Industries won a tender for the search and recovery operation, probably because Tony decided all that alien tech laying around is too valuable to just let it disappear in vaults of various agencies and offered some lowball price just to get in on that. SHIELD has been overseeing the process. And all the usual stuff.”

 _And imprisoning Loki_. Well, okay, that did fit in the “usual stuff” category. “What about the Avengers?”

“Lemaire must have some serious backing higher up or is really great at sucking important cocks, cause he got a promotion off that massive fuck-up of a mission. Either way, it got him out of our hair and the initiative is back in Fury’s hands, but we ran just one mission together. It’s just me, Stark and Rogers now. I have my own assignments, Stark is backseat-driving a company and Rogers got involved with some church charity or some shit. Group prayers, rebuilding what was destroyed, affordable homes for the victims and all that jazz. I’m also pretty sure he bangs that stocky blonde from Press Relations.”

“Ilana? Eww. Banner didn’t resurface?”

“Not that I know of. I did check, but his file ends on the Battle of New York, so if he did, it’s above my level of clearance.”

They reached the main street now and Clint helped her up to her feet. “Hey, man, you want a tenner?” Clint yelled to a rugged-looking guy dozing off on a bench. Hobo’s head popped up and he peered at Clint through bleary eyes. He appeared very inebriated. “Do you?”

The guy nodded and staggered in their direction. “Here,” Clint said, handing him a crumpled ten-dollar bill and shoving the wheelchair forth. “Roll that back.”

The guy nodded again and wandered off, pushing the chair in front of him.

“You know he won’t,” Natasha pointed out.

“I don’t give a fuck. So, where do you want to go?”

“Home.”

“It’s a bad idea. I must go in the morning. You shouldn’t be alone. We should go to my place. There’s always Jarvis there if anything happens.”

“Jarvis?”

“Stark’s AI. He runs the tower. He can make coffee just how you like it and switch tv channels if you can’t reach the remote. Probably a lot of other shit too, like calling someone if you need assistance.”

“And watch my every move? No, thank you.”

“Your room in SHIELD’s compound on Long Island is probably still open and if not some other probably is and we can piss Fury off one more time tonight and get him to arrange that.”

“It is the last place in the whole wide universe I want to be right now. And that includes getting stranded on an alien planet _again_.”

He raised an eyebrow but did not comment. “There’s that hotel by the compound too, at least I would be close if you needed me.”

“That’s probably the worst idea you had in your life. Or today, at least.”

“So, what do you suggest?”

“I told you. I want to sleep in my own bed for once.”

He glared at her. “Nat, don’t be unreasonable.”

“I’m being very reasonable. I’m a grown-up and I can handle myself and I’ll call you if anything happens.”

“Fine,” he grunted.

\---

It took them another quarter of an hour to finally find a ride. The city was still under a partial lockdown, many streets were barricaded and inaccessible, many businesses still closed, and the traffic was not what it used to be, especially at night.

Natasha couldn’t help but crank her neck and watch the cityscape outside the window. It felt so long ago to her, but the wounds from the attack were still fresh. Some buildings stood dark and hollowed, still too damaged and under reconstruction or slated for demolition, unhealed marks on the glowing flesh of the Big Apple. Just across the street from Stark’s tower Bear Stearns Building had it’s southern façade still covered with acres of blue tarp, hiding the several-dozen-story gash ripped by a flying alien monster whale. Even the tower itself still had its neon sign ruined, only a glowing “A” left standing out against the dark sky.

“Don’t tell me Stark couldn’t get it fixed by now,” she said incredulously.

“He could, but he left it like that on purpose. He says it’s stands for ‘Avengers’ now.”

“That’s just… tacky.”

“Have you seen the rest of the building?”

The cab driver glared at Clint in the rearview mirror, surprised with his insider’s information. Or just disagreeing with his architectural taste. It was probably the former though.

They took the Lincoln Tunnel under the Hudson and Natasha breathed a sigh of relief. There wasn’t any damage visible on the New Jersey side of the river and the neighborhood looked pretty much like she remembered it. Like nothing has changed.

That was a lie, of course, but she was willing to take it for the time being.

\---

Her building didn’t have an elevator and Clint let her know how displeased he was with that fact at least thrice before they reached her fourth story apartment. He grabbed the spare key from the fuse box, pushed the door open and stepped over a pile of unopened letters littering the hallway.

“Ugh, I hope electricity still works, I don’t think I paid _that_ ,” he said and flipped the switch.

It did. Natasha had it set on auto-payment, along with the rest of her bills, in case one mission or another took longer than she anticipated, so she wouldn’t have to go home and find herself without water or light. Or internet. She needed that.

She plopped down on the couch. Bare the layer of dust that settled on the furniture, the rest of the small apartment was just as if she never left. From her new perspective, aided by a lifechanging adventure on a different planet, making friends with an alien and just plain, old _magic_ , it looked different. Empty, dingy and foreign. 

Clint was rummaging through the cupboards in the kitchenette corner. “It looks like you have a can of tuna, a half-full jar of peanut butter and some cornflakes, only two months past the ‘best before’ date,” he announced, opened the fridge and quickly closed it again. “Smells like something died in here.”

“You’re probably not far off.”

“I’ll make a seven-eleven run before work in the morning,” he said and opened another drawer. “Oh, you have coffee! Want some? I definitely want some.”

“You should go and get some sleep. I’ll just order delivery if I need something.”

“I can sleep on the couch if you’re not in the mood to share,” he said and waved his hand towards the bedroom.

“I appreciate your concern, but you should really get some rest. And this is the least comfortable couch on planet Earth.”

“I’ve slept on worse.”

“I know you did, I was there,” she smiled. “Seriously, go exploit that Stark Tower bed of yours, if just for a couple of hours. I’ll be fine. You can come by tomorrow and check on me.”

“What are _you_ going to do?”

“Honestly? I just feel like dropping down on the bed and falling into another coma,” she said. “Preferably a shorter one this time.”

“You sure you’ll be fine?”

“Positive.”

“You’re a tough nut to crack.”

“I don’t think it means what you think it means, Clint,” she smirked. “But you know me.”

“Yeah, I suppose I do. I guess I’ll be going then.”

He turned to leave. “Oh, I almost forgot.” He pulled a phone out of his pocket. “Here.”

“What’s that?”

“Have you forgotten how a phone looks like?”

“No. But why are you giving this one to me?”

“It’s yours.”

Natasha turned the device in her hand. It was one of the fancy SI smartphone models. It still had the protective sleeve on. “It’s definitely not.”

“It has your sim card in it. The guys from the Crime Lab took your old one apart, looking for clues.”

“Whatever for?”

“No idea, but we’ve been all grasping at straws there.”

“Thanks,” she said, “I appreciate it. Although it’s an overkill. I’d be fine with a hand-me-down.”

Clint shrugged. “This is what Jarvis had delivered when I asked for a phone.”

“Makes sense.”

“Yeah.”

He just stood there, looking at her.

“Goodnight, Clint.”

He sighed and shook his head. “Night, Nat.”

The door has not yet fully closed behind him when she scrambled off the couch and into the bedroom. Her legs were trembling, and her gait was unsteady like that of a newborn lamb, but she did get there, eventually. She retrieved her laptop from her desk, then, after a minute consideration, grabbed the charger too. She collapsed on the bed, plugged the charger, and turned the computer on.

 _03:27, September 19 th, 2012_, the startup screen informed her, and she stared at it.

Four months and seven days and yet it felt like a lifetime.

She could still remember her password, at least. A flurry of notifications welcomed her, months’ worth of unread emails and messages. She ignored them all and brought up the domain login screen. Her SHIELD credentials were still active, even if a popup notified her she needs to change her password soon. She requested access to the database and stared at the screen as it processed her query.

“Okay, so where the hell are you, Loki?”


	31. Scavenger hunt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which things that should be easy are proving anything but.

Loki’s file was disappointingly unhelpful. It informed her that they reappeared twenty-five days ago, right smack in the middle of Cherry Hill plaza in Central Park at eleven in the morning in a beam of light, much to the surprise of strollers, and that Loki was taken in by _[redacted]_ agents soon after. And that was that. Not a single interrogation log, no processing report, not a single photo or medical exam or video surveillance file. It didn’t say where he was taken or the names or units or even agency of origin of the agents who were at the site. She would put it on the curb of the ongoing chaos, but it was so unlike SHIELD to be _that_ sloppy and if it was just an honest mistake something would’ve made it though. No, it looked deliberate. As if someone wanted to keep as little of trace as possible of Loki’s presence on Earth. At least for agents with her level of clearance, but that also made no sense. There weren’t that many level eights in the organization, it only went two steps further, with chosen commanding officers sitting at nine and with Fury – and, presumably, his bosses from The World Security Council – sitting at the top. And fuck, why would she be excluded? She was there!

Then again, that never was a good argument for SHIELD.

She checked Banner’s file then, just to verify what Clint told her. His clearance might have gotten downgraded after he was compromised, but there was nothing past the battle there for her either.

Her own dossier provided a bit more info. It educated her that she was in fact dead when she was found, and it took paramedics fourteen minutes to resuscitate her. That was one rad way to learn about one’s death, that’s for sure. It hasn’t yet updated with her discharge papers, the last entry was from over a week ago, calling her state ‘serious but stable’, whatever the hell it meant. But it would get registered shortly, and SHIELD would want to evaluate her physical condition as soon as it did. She could stall for a day or two, but would have to go through with that, probably with all the questioning and psychological assessments too, if she wanted to keep her access. And she needed it, now more than ever.

Social media was the next to go under her scrutiny, but there wasn’t anything, not even a single mention, Twitter hashtag or a blurry Instagram photo. Not that she expected any, SHIELD’s algorithms were well equipped to find and scrub those off the internet. She browsed the usual suspects next, the conspiracy theories’ sites, the religious nuts sites, then the fandom sites too, for a good measure. Stark’s Iron Man had quite a fanatical following on the internet before and it turned out that the grace was extended to the rest of the Avengers now, with sites tracing all the gossip, theories, and sightings of so-called “America’s greatest heroes” (even if one third of them was not even American and one sixth – not even from planet Earth, but that didn’t seem to bother anyone) popping up, left and right. It wasn’t just the Avengers, either; it looked like Loki himself got a bit of a thing going on for him. She flipped through a few pages of Reddit comments and – while most of it was just unsubstantiated ramblings of twelve-year-olds (Americans did love their villains, fictional or otherwise) – some posts hit uncomfortably close to home: how he looked tired and jittery and very much in pain in the videos from New York. Yeah, she could see it so well now, too.

The truth was staring them in the face all this time and they all willfully ignored it, blinded by anger.

She sighed and closed the browser. There didn’t seem to be anything recent there anyway. She turned to the dark web then, deploying a vpn routing first. It wasn’t fully secure, but as long as SHIELD wasn’t looking for any particular activity coming from her and it was just the regular screening all agents were subjected to it would hold and prevent any red flags from popping next to her name. 

She checked a couple of the most prominent news aggregation sites then followed the links down the rabbit hole until she found her holy grail.

It was a blurry, shaky, pixelated video, a crop from a shitty phone camera recording more likely than not, showing a circle of black, unmarked SUVs and pick-up vans, surrounding a plaza in Central Park. In the foreground a group of paramedics was loading her own lifeless body into an ambulance. But it was the scene happening in the background that got her attention. She had to pause, take a couple of deep breaths and force herself to keep on watching as one of the agents approached and prodded Loki’s prone body with his boot, time after time, until Loki stirred. At that distance, his face showed up as just a couple of pixels, but she didn’t need to see it to know the mix of confusion, pain and indignation that was painted on it when he looked up. Another agent joined in and they handcuffed Loki and dragged him, hunched over and stumbling, but very much alive, into one of the vans. Two minutes later the tires screeched and turned, and the vehicle left the plaza. A group of agents split off the group on the square and approached the place where the camera operator was standing. The video shook, showed a flash of the ground and ended, as the author of the recording hastily vacated the scene. That was probably why it survived; the agents were most likely carrying scrambling devices that would fry most common memory chips in a thirty feet radius.

She watched it a couple more times – it didn’t get any easier to look at her colleagues abusing their authority over a man who couldn’t even fight back – but wasn’t able to make out any more details. The faces of the agents weren’t recognizable, nor were the license plates (not that it would matter much, they were fake anyway), and the video was cropped in a way that didn’t show any identifying characteristics of the onlookers. 

The comment section wasn’t that helpful either. There were a couple of reasonably close shots, paralleling the beam in the sky that preluded the scene to the portal during the invasion but there wasn’t a single one that would’ve guessed the identities of either her or Loki. Whether it was because the site was sneakily moderated (it wasn’t out of the question, SHIELD – and other agencies too – did monitor the dark web as well, even if it wasn’t nearly as easy, as it was way too decentralized to fully control) or if just no one made the connection, she couldn’t tell.

Well, there was one way to find out. She brough forth the new comment box.

_“Hey, guys, is it me, or does the guy in the background look like Loki? You know, the one from the battle, few months ago? You might have heard of it.”_

Yes, flippancy went a long way on the internet.

That breadcrumb would take a while to be picked by the crows, if ever, so she directed her attention in other directions, searching for related reports. There were a few articles about a plane that crashed in Colorado because of a training exercise, matching the date of their disappearance but the rest was just the usual internet bullshit, now with a double dose of aliens. She idly went through a “list of prominent figures who are most likely aliens in disguise” and found both Stark and Pierce on it. She wasn’t even sure where the “disguise” part came from. The Chitauri were very explicitly displaying their extraterrestrial features, Thor looked human by default and wasn’t really hiding his identity or place of origin and no one knew Loki’s secret.

The clock on the bedside table gave off a small beep for six in the morning – just a small signal that the regular alarm wasn’t set – and the streetlamps blinked off, leaving the faint glow of the rising sun to disperse the darkness. She put the laptop aside and stumbled out of bed, then stood by the window, holding on to the windowsill for stability. From this angle she could see just a thin strip of the Eastern sky that cut between the two tenements on the other side of the street.

The last time she watched the sun rise was still on the island, with Loki dozing off at her side, his head resting on her bosom and his hand draped loosely on her belly. It was a pleasant memory, but the way it reminded her that he was out there – locked up in one cell or another, still wearing that goddamned muzzle – wasn’t. At least she could be relatively sure SHIELD wouldn’t let him die, although she suspected he wasn’t happy with whatever way they employed to keep him alive. He would be fine; he was strong, and he would get through this, even if it was far from ideal. She would figure it out, even if this is not how she envisioned this happening.

Well, she didn’t plan this through at all. She was so anxious to get Loki back to Earth that she didn’t even consider what would happen to him once he gets here. She was not even supposed to be here, it was just a stroke of cosmic luck that she was still alive. Enough time has passed for him to tell them everything, twice over, and he was still not going free, so it was obvious they did not believe him, at least not fully, and there was no line of people queuing up to help him, perhaps because no one knew he was _here_. Would he be stuck with SHIELD for good if she didn’t make it?

Gods, she almost managed to fuck it up even worse.

The small room suddenly felt cramped and she pushed the window up. The rustle of faraway traffic filled her ears and the smell of the city hit her nostrils, engine fumes and tar and garbage and old grease from the small Italian restaurant on the street corner. It used to be so familiar she no longer noticed it, but not anymore.

The city _felt_ different, too. She closed her eyes and explored around, just a bit, then reeled at the sensation, as all the entangled life energies, bright and close and cloying – people slumbering the remnants of the night away in their little compartments – flooded her senses. The electrical energy circulated in walls and whispered in cables running along the streets, the radio waves resonated in air, the low hum of the water tumbled in pipes, the ground shook and yielded under passing vehicles and every brick and every paver and every pane of glass vibrated in its own tempo. It was so much different from the island, where there was just her and Loki and the expanse of nature all around; the city sung in her veins and pulsed in her mind, threatening to drag her away with its frantic rhythm. It was scary, but glorious and exhilarating too and she took in a long gasp of the air and let the feeling carry her on.

\---

“Natasha? Are you all right?” Clint asked in a deeply concerned tone, shaking her arm.

“Uhm, yeah,” she rasped and dragged herself up, propping her back against the side of the bed and blinking the sleep away. “Totally fine.”

“Then why are you sleeping on the floor?”

She bit her lip and considered what to tell him. This was a new, quite unpleasant experience, to have to hide so many so important things from Clint, but she still did not figure out a way to tell him the truth in a way he would understand, in a way that wouldn’t make things even worse. “ _Oh, you know, I’ve been exploring my magic that Loki taught me to use then I decided to go to lie down on the floor because I couldn’t fall asleep without imagining him by my side and the bed was destroying the illusion”_ wouldn’t quite cut it.

“Natasha?”

“Why are you here?” Her words sounded harsher than she intended, so she added, “it’s the middle of the day and you were supposed to be at work.”

Clint squinted at her. “Your phone was turned off. I was worried.”

“I never turned it on.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t need to use it yet?” In all honesty, she just forgot about it. Four months long vacation from technology apparently does that to a person.

He shook his head in disapproval. “Come on,” he said, grabbed her arm and hauled her up. “Get your ass off the floor and go take a shower. You stink.”

Right, showers. She forgot about that too. “Is that Thai?” she asked, sniffling the whisps of scent the air current carried from the living area. Her stomach grumbled at the notion because she haven’t eaten anything either. “From that place on Second Avenue?”

“The one and only,” he said with a smirk and nudged her towards the bathroom. “I got you that awful coconut soup you love and a papaya salad. But shower first.”

“Now you’re just being cruel,” she said, closing the door behind her.

“Cruel, but fair!” he yelled after her, then added something she couldn’t quite make out over the sound of running water.

Steam quickly filled the small room and she stripped, tossing the clothes into a bin in the corner. It wasn’t as if she intended to ever wear those again. Warm streams washing over her felt amazing and she took a moment to revel in the sensation. Hot water – and shampoo – felt almost surreal to have after so long without it.

She didn’t take as much time as she would like. Clint was waiting and there was no point in giving him any more reasons to worry. The shower wasn’t going anywhere. She stepped out, wrapped herself in a soft towel and wiped the condensation off the mirror, then studied her own reflection briefly.

Her features grew a bit sharper and the gash on her cheek left a thin, pink scar under her eye but other than that it was just her old face staring back at her. The tan she acquired under the red sun of the island faded away and her skin was back to its usual, pale self.

She raked her fingers through her hair. It grew out a bit and started to curl naturally but still showed Loki did a great job at cutting it, without any obvious irregularities or missed spots. It might not be perfect, but it was definitely presentable and required no immediate intervention before she could show herself in front of other people. She applied a copious amount of conditioner before combing it, just because she could, then brushed her teeth, very thoroughly. Her cracked molar apparently got removed when she was unconscious, leaving only a half-healed gap behind. It was showing signs of infection before and she suspected it might not be salvageable, so it wasn’t that great of a loss. It’s not like she didn’t get her teeth knocked out before; half of her upper jaw consisted of artificial implants already, she could get it fixed once she dealt with more important matters. If anything, at least SHIELD health insurance plan came with all the benefits, including dental.

There were take-out boxes set up on the kitchen counter and the smell permeated the space and called to her, but she still took time to dress before she sat down to eat. Clint raised an eyebrow when she was closing the door to her bedroom but didn’t comment. She would have no issues with presenting herself butt-naked to him before, it’s not like he didn’t see everything there was to see already, but now it seemed… inappropriate, somehow.

She was not _his_ , not anymore. The sooner they got it out of the way, the better. She wasn’t sure when she made that decision, it was already there when she looked. It wasn’t even about her and Loki and what happened between them ( _nothing, Natasha, nothing happened. You kissed him and he told you he wasn’t interested, the rest was just seeking a bit of comfort in a desperate situation_ ), she suddenly just felt tired of the dance they danced for so long. The mood was gone, and the music stopped playing. It wasn’t playing for quite some time, she realized, and she was only moving along the non-existent rhythm because it felt familiar.

“Fury called me,” Clint announced once she reemerged from the bedroom, now fully clothed. It took a while to find clothes that would still fit her newly reshaped physique. She would have to go shopping, later, as much as she wasn’t looking forward to it. “He tried to call _you_ , but your phone is still off, and you don’t answer your emails.”

“He said what he wanted?”

Clint threw out his hands. “Debriefing? The mess has been going on for too long now, so he is not the only one to want this under the wraps as soon as possible. He also found the ‘other planet’ thing quite interesting, as far as I can tell.”

Her brows furrowed. “What do you mean?”

“I might have told him about that,” Clint said and shot her a guilty glance. “I had to give him something after he let me off the hook for so long to sit at your bedside.”

“No, I mean, why would he be so surprised by that?” The slither of panic reawakened and creeped up her spine again. “They had Loki for a month now and where we were is basically the first thing they ought to ask him.”

“What makes you think he would talk? He was an obstinate little bitch last time, why should this time be different?”

“I just… know, okay?” she said carefully. Even if – for some unknown reason – they haven’t figured out the sign language yet, there was always writing, and it ought to be literally the first thing they tried. But if they didn’t know, it has to mean one of two things – either Loki was in too bad shape to be questioned or he decided to keep silent – and both were troubling in their own way. “Listen, Clint, I know how it’s going to sound, but there’s no other way to put it. Loki is not the man we all thought he is. And there’s a good explanation…”

“He did fuck with your head!” Clint rose from his seat and aimed a finger at her. “I knew it!”

“No, he did not,” she said, quietly, and stepped back. “We just… talked.”

“Talked,” Clint echoed and sat back down. “And you, what, just believed him?!”

“Yes.”

“Why?!”

She took in a long breath. “I… We were stuck there, Clint, without a way to go home. There was no one there. Just the two of us. And Loki couldn’t use his powers to transport us back.”

“So?”

“We were certain we are going to die. If it’s not the kind of experience that inspires honesty, I don’t know what is.”

Clint barked out a laugh. “He was just playing you, Nat! That’s what he does, why can’t you see that?! I know him, I know how he thinks!”

_So do I._

Clint went on. “And, if he couldn’t use his bullshit powers, how the fuck did he get you back in the end?”

“It wasn’t him. It was…” _Me_. “Someone else. We found this… I don’t even know how to call it. A creature. A ghost. It transported us back.” That seemed general enough.

“You make no sense.”

“We’ve seen flying whales and alien hordes on Manhattan, Clint. We’ve seen gods duel. We’ve seen actual magic performed. What makes you draw the line at ghosts?”

Clint shook his head in disbelief. “I don’t get what your play is.”

“There’s no play, Clint. I just…” she fell silent. She wouldn’t be able to convince him, not yet at least. She could see it in Clint’s eyes, he cultivated that resentment for too long now, and it will take more than just words for him to change his mind. “May I have my soup now? Or do you intend me to starve?”

He pushed one of the containers to her with a pout. “You can have two of my spring rolls, if you promise to behave.”

“Have I ever?” she said with a thin smile.

He glowered at her for a moment before he yielded. “I missed you, Nat,”

“I missed you too, Clint.”

\---

“I have to go. I was supposed to be in DC right now. I might or might not have told Rumlow I was held back by a mix-up in HR and there’s a solid chance he realized it’s bullshit by now.”

“Rumlow? You answer to him now?”

“No, but I’m running an exfil mission in Zagreb with his strike team, starting Friday. We had a preparatory meeting scheduled at eleven,” Clint said and wrinkled his nose. “What are you doing?”

“Putting my shoes on.”

“What for?”

“I’m coming to Washington with you.”

“No, you don’t. You should rest, you got out of hospital just yesterday.”

“Today, technically speaking,” she said and went to grab the phone. Her purse was still in her locker back at the facility – unless tech guys got to that too – so she just stashed it into her pocket. Then, after a minute consideration, she retrieved one of the IDs and an emergency prepaid credit card from the hidden compartment in her linens drawer. “Fury wants to talk to me and it’s an odd coincidence, because I want to talk to him too.”

“About what?”

“You will get pissed again if I tell you,” she said, examining the ID. “Kayleigh Wallace” it said. She could go with “Kaylee”.

“It’s about Loki.”

“Yes, Clint.”

“Yep, you were right,” he grunted, “I’m pissed.”

She sighed. “You’re ready to go?”

“Are you?”

“Don’t I look ready?”

Clint carefully studied her, head to toes, taking in her tousled hair, lack of makeup and mismatched, loose clothes, then crooked his head. “Do you really want to hear the answer to that?”

“Probably not. Let’s go.”

\---

There was a bright red, two-seat Aston Martin parked on the reserved spot right in front of the main entrance. There was a parking violation ticket on the windshield. Clint crumpled it and tossed it into the gutter without even looking at it.

“You got Stark’s car back?”

“You insult me,” Clint said, pulling forth a butthurt face. “Of course I haven’t. This is a different one.”

“Don’t you think he will notice if _all_ his cars are gone?”

“Come on, what’s the point of having a billionaire friend if you don’t get to taste the high-life?”

“People like Stark are not friends with people like us, Clint.”

“Neither are homicidal aliens,” he shot back without a pause.

She bit back the response. It would only make things worse.

“Besides,” Clint continued, unabashed, “he’s got a bit of an ego but he’s not that bad once you get to know him.”

_Yeah, I could say the exact same thing._

\---

They were two hours into the usually three and-a-half-hour drive and they were still on the Staten Island. Newark Bridge was still closed after being damaged in the invasion and Four-forty wasn’t prepared to take all the rerouted traffic, so they were stuck in a traffic jam by Charleston.

Honda Civic behind them honked and Clint unrolled the window and flipped them off. “What’s wrong with you people?! I’d fucking move if I could!”

“Might have something to do with the license plate?” she suggested without looking away from the phone. She turned it on and was now scrolling through three hundred seventy-five unread messages. “Just a suggestion.”

Clint snorted. “Fucking commies.”

“Get over yourself, you wouldn’t be able to afford this car anyway.”

“I could save.”

“Yeah, sure,” she teased. “Like Laura would let you get one.”

“That reminds me. She told me to say hi. So, hi.”

“Thanks. Tell her I’m saying hi back.”

“You could tell her yourself, you know?” he said and tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. “The kids are missing you like crazy. I had no heart to tell them you were gone, so I just… You should come over, that’s what I mean.”

“I would love to, but I have to deal with a couple of things here first,” she said.

“Drop it.”

“Excuse me?”

“The Loki deal. The whole package. Drop it. Nothing good will come out of it.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh, I do. I get it. You were stuck and had to work with him. He told you one sappy story or another and you chose to believe it because it made allying with an enemy easier to bear. No one is going to hold that against you, we do what we have to do to survive. But it’s over now. You’re home. You have friends who care for you. You don’t need him anymore. And whatever you think you owe him – you don’t.”

The car in front moved a few feet. A second passed and the Civic honked again. Clint stuck his head outside. “Fuck off, will you?!” Honda driver’s head popped out as well and he yelled something in return, but Clint rolled the window back up before the words could reach them. “I mean it, Nat.”

“I know you do.”

“So?”

She grounded her teeth. “I just want to know if he is all right. For the old times’ sake, or whatever you want to call it. Then I’m done. Like you said, I don’t owe him anything.”

He nodded, satisfied.

Lying to Clint felt wrong, but it was the only way to make him drop the line of questioning and she couldn’t allow him to interfere and possibly jeopardize her plan to get Loki out. Once she figures one out, that is.

\---

“I want to see Loki,” she demanded.

Fury waited for the door to his office to close before answering. “Good afternoon to you too, agent Romanoff.”

She folded her arms and glowered at him.

“I don’t see why you should,” he said and regarded her with a sizing glare. “You look like shit.”

“I don’t see why I shouldn’t,” she snapped back, “and I’m fine, thank you for asking.”

“He is no longer your concern. The issue has been dealt with and the case is closed. You should focus on more helpful pursuits. Like getting yourself in shape and ready for the field again.”

“Do not change the subject.”

“Do not instruct me on how to talk to my _subordinates_ , Romanoff.”

She sat down and crossed her legs, earning herself another glare for doing that without an explicit invitation. “So, why didn’t you interrogate him?”

If she didn’t know him as well as she did, she would no doubt miss the small twitch of his eyebrow. “What makes you think we did not?”

“I have a hunch.”

“Is your hunch named Clint Barton?” Fury shook his head with pretended incredulity and sat back in his sprawling, leather chair, his fingers braided on his stomach. “Why do I have a feeling you’re about to tell me something I won’t like?”

Natasha weighted her options. She could lie. She could beat around the bush. She could try appealing to his humanity, although that strategy had a long history of not working with Fury. Or she could…

“You have to let Loki go.”

“And why is that?”

“Because he is innocent.”

“You’ve just earned yourself a very thorough psych evaluation. Followed by a physical exam, as you have clearly hit your head on some low hanging branch on your way here. We’ve all _seen him_. Unless you’re going to show me some irrefutable evidence that it was all a convincing group hallucination, that’s not negotiable.”

“You have to hear me out, at least.”

“I’m sure it’s a charming story of sunshine, rainbows and friendship,” he said, his voice dark and disinterested. “But I have more important things to do than listening to unhinged ramblings. Like running a government agency.” He got up from his seat, went to the door and opened it, then gestured at the hallway. “So, if you’d be so kind…”

She locked her eyes on him. Something obviously wasn’t right. Fury was not a person to disregard a potential intel like that, no matter how little he thought about the credibility of the source. No, he would listen and then make up his mind.

“I’m sorry for taking your time, Director,” she said with a slight bow, got up and moved to step out of the office.

Fury stopped her when she was crossing the door. “You look pale, Romanoff. Do you need me to get you a cab?”

“I’m staying at the Arc. I think I’ll just walk. I could use the fresh air,” she chirped, playing along.

“Let me walk you to the elevator at least.” Fury put forth his arm for her to grab onto and she did, with a small nod and a thin smile.

They exchanged a few pleasantries as he walked her to the elevator bank, an inane, small talk about the weather and traffic, nothing either of them cared about. Fury pressed the button and they waited for the lift in silence. When it arrived and a people poured out, he leaned in and whispered, “Lafayette Square, nine o’clock.” Then he turned on his heel and left.

\---

She had a few hours to burn, so she drove Stark’s car downtown. Clint let her have it, as he wouldn’t be returning to New York until the mission was over anyway and would hitch a ride with one of the transports to Long Island facility later. Besides, he couldn’t leave it in the underground garage because it had no employee’s pass assigned and leaving it on the streets would surely lead to it being hauled.

It’s been a while since she drove a car and even longer since she drove one of those fancy ones, so she couldn’t help but smile as the engine purred to life. It was a special order with manual transmission, too, Stark was apparently the “driving stick” kind of guy and she couldn’t decide if it fit him perfectly or was too predictable. She thought about giving it a test ride on the interstate but forgo the idea in the end. Her own driver’s license expired two months ago, and she didn’t check whether Kayleigh Wallace even had one in the system. Getting stopped by a random cop for speeding could just as well squander her plans under those circumstances.

She went shopping instead, in the Washington Square mall. Nothing fancy, just some clothes that would actually fit, some underwear too. She went for a casual, utilitarian style, nothing that would make her stand out; two pairs of jeans, some t-shirts, a hoodie. She changed in a bathroom stall, stashed everything else into a newly acquired duffel bag, then grabbed an overpriced falafel in one of the stalls in the food court.

Then she waited.

\---

It’s been two past nine when Fury showed up. He took time to change too, wearing sports clothes and sunglasses. For any uninformed onlooker he would be just a jogger who stopped on one of the benches to catch a breath, and that was obviously what he was going for.

“Nick,” she said, as she handed him a cup of latte she got at Starbucks. Fury was a latte kind of person, four sugars, too. She took a sip of her americana.

“You made sure you were not followed, I assume,” he said.

“Of course.” There was a pair of agents trailing her when she left the Triskelion, but she lost them before she even got to the car. She turned off her phone and left it in the vehicle, too. “What is this all about?”

“You tell me.”

She did. All the important parts. The Mad Titan Thanos and his role in Loki’s attack, the mind control and coercion, and the reason for Ebony Maw’s attack on the transport, all was put on the table. She skipped Loki’s personal details, his fall from Asgard and the specifics of Odin’s spell. She wasn’t going to take a part in torture again if SHIELD decided to use it against Loki. She danced around getting back to Earth and her role in it too, telling Fury the same abridged version she told Clint.

“I see.” Fury was pacing now, back and forth, in front of the bench, his hands clasped behind his back. “And you know this all how?”

“Loki told me.”

“The last time I saw him he wasn’t in a talkative mood. Might have something to do with that bridle in his mouth that my best team of eggheads couldn’t figure how to take off.”

She ground her teeth as the anger seethed in her guts. She knew exactly what that meant. “He can write, you know. In English. And I taught him sign language. You would’ve known if you tried.”

“Don’t give me the sad puppy eyes, Romanoff, it doesn’t suit you,” Fury barked, stopped pacing, and turned his back to her. “Who else knows this?”

“Besides you, me and Loki? Nobody.”

“Good. Let it stay that way, at least for now. We don’t want unwarranted panic.”

“I’d say it’s pretty warranted,” she said darkly. “What about Loki? I have to see him.”

“That’s not possible, I’m afraid,” he said. His tone was calm and neutral but there was still a dangerous edge to it.

“Why not?!”

“Loki is not in SHIELD’s custody.”

“Then where the fuck is he?!” she raised her voice. She didn’t particularly care.

Fury turned, pushed down his sunglasses so they rested on the tip of his nose, locked his eye on her and responded, with rare frankness. “I have no idea.”

“What do you mean? You said you had him. You had your people running experiments on him!”

“That’s right. As in, past tense and only because Pierce requested to use my science team and exceptionally granted us a temporary access. Just for the tests, it was explicitly outlined we were not to carry out any interrogations. Then, a bit over a week ago, I got orders, directly from the oval office, to drop any ongoing research and hand our guest along with any data we’ve gathered back over to World Security Council forces. So, I did.”

“Pierce,” she muttered. “He wanted his hands on Loki since day one.”

“Yes,” Fury said curtly. He was angry about the situation as well, she realized. “And now he got what he wanted. Loki’s escape attempt breached the terms of the settlement we struck with Thor, as none of the survivors could tell for sure what happened there, while Thor was busy raging at us for losing his brother. And later, with you in a coma and with Thor gone, I was out of arguments.”

“I can testify.”

“And you think it would change anything? Speaking out in Loki’s defense will only discredit you.”

She sighed. Of course it would. The truth was never much of a factor in political plays of this caliber. “What do you expect me to do then?”

“Use up the sick leave, then come in and file your report. Leave out _any_ parts that could make anyone suspicious of where your allegiances lie. I’ll have to run you through the usual hoops, but I assume you’re still capable of passing the psych evaluation in flying colors, right?”

“And then what?”

“Come back and do your job.”

“What about Loki?”

“Nothing,” he said plainly.

She froze and stared at him. _Nothing_. Fury expected her to sit back and pretend nothing happened as Loki rots in a cell. But of course, this is exactly what the old Natasha would do. Get her orders and follow them to a tee.

“I see,” she grounded through clenched teeth.

“We can’t risk going against Pierce – or the Council – not until we know what their game is. It is just a part of a bigger whole. They’ve been hoarding equipment and weapons, they’ve seized most of what was left of Phase two and project Pegasus, a lot of the scrap from the invasion too. The scepter as well. Loki’s just a small part of it.”

“He is a person, Nick. Not some valuable artefact you can stash in a vault and forget about.”

“Pierce would disagree with you there.”

A shiver ran down her spine. “Where did they take him?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t ask.”

“Loki can help us. The real danger is still out there, we can’t just sit on our assess pretending the day was saved.”

“That’s another great reason to not touch the subject with a six-foot pole. The Council has been chipping away pieces of SHIELD’s jurisdiction for years now. I’m not going to hand Pierce any more ammunition, because he _will_ use it to shut us down completely. I’ve spent too much of my life trying to get this show on up and running to let it all go to pieces, just because of one meager prisoner that might or might not cooperate,” he said, pushed down the glasses again and looked at her with a scornful glare. “Earth needs SHIELD, now more than ever.”

She still stared at him.

“Let it go, Romanoff, get your shit together and start thinking about the bigger picture. I can’t afford losing more agents.”

She blinked.

“Are we clear?”

“Yes,” she muttered.

He took a sip of the coffee. “Try soy milk next time. I’m lactose intolerant.” He tossed the cup into the trash can. “See you around.”

She stayed on the bench, idly watching Fury jogging away until he disappeared behind a line of trees, her mind racing. She still had no idea where Loki was and now she couldn’t even be sure he was still alive. What would Pierce even want with him if not his knowledge?

She didn’t like the obvious answer, not at all.


	32. Traces

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which things take shape and it's not the shape anyone's happy with.

Natasha drove back to New York the same night. There was not enough money left on the card for a hotel and she didn’t want to use any of the safehouses. They were all tracked, and she wanted to avoid SHIELD’s scrutiny as much as she could. And her biological clock needed time to adjust again anyway.

The car handled just as nicely as she would expect it to and the traffic was minimal so late in the night, so she made good time.

She stopped just past Trenton to refuel and grab something to eat. She also got a prepaid sim card from the very uninterested gas station clerk, who didn’t even deem her worthy of a single look.

She was still half an hour off when she made the call. First one went to voicemail, but the second attempt was more successful.

“Hello?” a sleep-ridden female voice answered. “Who’s there?”

“Hi, Hanima,” Natasha chirped. “It’s been a while.”

“Nat? Is that you?”

“The one and only.”

“God, I told you not to call me! Especially not in the middle of the night! I’m hanging up now.”

“No, wait…”

The call ended. Natasha dialed the number again.

It took seven signals for Hanima to pick up. “I told you, I don’t want anything to do with your business. Stop calling me.”

“I need your help, Hani.”

“You always do. But I don’t do that anymore. I shouldn’t even be talking to you. So good night and good luck.”

Natasha waited a second. The call stayed active. “Please? This is the last time, I promise. One quick favor and we’re even and I’ll never ever bother you again.”

“Urgh,” the woman on the other end growled in surrender. “What do you want?”

“It’s best not discussed over the phone. I’ll come over.”

“Now?!”

“Yes, now. It’s urgent.”

The line rustled with a sigh. “Fine. Do you need my address?”

“No.”

“Of course you don’t.”

\---

The suburbs were quiet, the residents sleeping behind their drawn drapes. She parked an intersection away, under a cover of a great oak tree, and walked the rest of the way. The house looked like any other on the street, single story with a semi-detached garage, with whitewashed shiplap on the walls and gray shingle on the roof. She crossed the manicured lawn, jumped over a low picket fence then knocked on the back door.

There was a rush of movement and the light came on, then the door opened a bit and a face of middle-aged woman appeared. There was no makeup on the tan skin and dark hair slipped from under the hastily applied scarf.

“Good to see you, Hanima,” Natasha said. “Can I come in or are we going to talk like that?”

The woman shushed her. “I go by Alisha these days, if you have to know,” she whispered and opened the door to let Natasha in.

They were standing in a kitchen. There was a high toddler chair by the table and kids’ toys strewn everywhere.

“So, who’s the lucky gal?” asked Natasha, pointing at the photo of a smiling woman holding a baby wrapped in a blue blanked that was pinned on the fridge.

“I don’t see how that’s any of your business,” Hanima hissed.

She led Natasha further into the house and down the stairs into the basement. The cellar was just as regular-looking and in place in a suburb house as the kitchen above; shelves lining the walls were heavy with preserves and unused household items and there was a laundry setup in the corner and a heating furnace in another.

“Under the rules of the plea I’m not allowed to own anything more advanced than an ipad,” Hanima explained, flipped a switch on the wall and pulled one of the shelves away from the wall. It moved smoothly on the hidden wheels and revealed a new door. Hanima pulled a key from her back pocket, unlocked it, and pushed it open.

Natasha stepped inside. “Well, what do you know.” This, for a change, did look like a secret lair of a super-hacker. The room wasn’t big, but every possible surface was littered with electronics at least half of which Natasha couldn’t even name, lest figure out a use for. One wall was dedicated to a multimonitor computer setup and that’s what was the object of Hanima’s attention. The displays flicked to life with a press of a button. There was a picture of a basket of kittens set as a wallpaper, multiplied on every monitor.

Natasha snorted.

“What? I’m a traditionalist. And I like cats,” Hanima said, her tone changed now that she was in her own element. “Whose secrets do you want me to uncover for you?”

“World Security Council.”

Hanima whistled “Your appetites has grown since the last time,” she said, her fingers running across the keyboard already. “Not that I complain but this is a broad river to fish in. You’ll have to be more specific.”

“I need to find a prisoner they are holding. A very _specific_ one.”

“Do they have a name?” Hanima asked as she started patting away on the one of three keyboards. Why did she need three was beyond Natasha.

“Loki.”

“Any surname?” Hanima questioned, only barely paying attention, focused on a login box that popped up. The string of letters she put into it looked like a jumble without much sense to Natasha, but it did _something_ , redirecting to a different page.

“Uhm,” Natasha huffed. Did Loki even have one? Thor went with “Odinson” but that was just a patronym, not a real surname, and Loki wouldn’t use it, not in a million years.

“It’s ‘Loki’ like the alien that attacked New York? That’s an unfortunate name to have these days.”

Natasha bit her lip.

“Wait,” Hanima paused, turned and eyed her with a frown. “You can’t mean…”

“Yep.”

“And he is still on Earth?!”

“Apparently,” Natasha said cagily. “Can you find him?”

Hanima hesitated, her gaze still on Natasha. “Only if there’s any info in the system,” she said in the end, then turned back to the screen and added, “luckily for you there’s barely anything you can do these days without leaving a digital trail.”

Natasha picked a pile of dismantled hard drives from a stool, put them away on a similar pile on one of the shelves and sat down, tapping her fingers on her thigh.

“Stop it. You’re distracting me. And don’t touch my stuff,” Hanima muttered half-heartedly. “I’m in… Woah.”

Natasha swept the screens but couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary, just lines of code. “What?”

“See that?” Hanima pointed at one of the windows, with quickly scrolling lines of text running through it. “It’s a DNN running on the server.”

“And what’s that?”

“A deep neural network.”

“Uhm…”

“An AI. At least a beginning of one.”

“What does that mean for us?”

“It means this is going to be a challenge. And that I need a coffee. There’s some in the cupboard above the stove.”

Natasha sighed, went up the stairs and back to the kitchen. She stepped through the threshold and only then realized something isn’t right. The light was on when it certainly wasn’t when they left. It was too late though.

There was a clank of broken porcelain and a surprised yelp and then she had to dodge as a knife was tossed in her direction. “Hey,” she yelled from behind a doorframe, “I’m Hanima’s…. Alisha’s friend.” She peeked into the kitchen and had to retreat immediately, as another blade flew by and stuck into the wall down the hallway. “Can you stop?”

There was a trumpet of footsteps on the wooden stairs and Hanima burst into the room. “She is telling the truth! Don’t kill her,” she yelled. “Sarah, this is Natasha, my former… coworker,” she said and pulled her from behind the cover and into the doorway. “Natasha, this is Sarah, my wife.”

“Hi,” Natasha said and eyed the older woman. She was tall and lean, and her hair had a deep chestnut color. There was another knife still in her hand that she was still considering throwing, judging by her stance. “I see your taste in women hasn’t changed all that much.”

“Shut up.”

“What are you doing here?” Sarah hissed and stashed the blade back into the knife block on the counter. Her eyes drifted away from Natasha and onto her partner. “You were down in the basement.”

“Yes, but there has been…”

“Keep it. I’m tired of listening to your excuses. It’s always the same one,” Sarah said. “I’m going back to bed.”

She left. Natasha stood there, unsure what to do.

“I hope you’re happy,” Hanima said with a sniffle.

“Not particularly, no,” Natasha said. “I’m sorry. I wouldn’t have come, if I had any other options.”

“Why the hell do you want to find a guy who attacked us anyway?”

“I’m trying to prevent more people from getting hurt.” That much was true.

“You should have started with me,” Hanima grunted. “Am I getting the coffee or not?”

\---

“That’s it. There’s nothing more recent, or anything in the gap between May and this.”

“That can’t be right,” Natasha said, staring at a single page document. “There has to be more. Anything.”

“If there is, it’s hidden under some code name and we won’t find it without crunching through all the data, cross-referencing dates, names and places. It would take years to sift through with my hardware. And there may be other servers that I can’t even know are there, because they are not directly connected to the main one.”

“Can you print it for me?”

“Print? Are you still living in the nineties?”

“I don’t want to leave a trace like that if they screen my devices.”

“They?” Hanima asked, got up and retrieved a printer from one of the lower shelves. There was a significant layer of dust on it.

“SHIELD, the Council, you name it.”

“What did you get yourself into?”

“I’m not entirely sure yet.”

The printer went live with a screech, but the document still printed. It took a world-renowned hacker to get that to work on first try, it seemed.

“Here,” Hanima said, handing her the page.

Natasha took the last look before folding it and stashing it into her back pocket. “Thank you.”

“What are you going to do now?”

“Go to Norwalk, Ohio, apparently.”

\---

She didn’t go to Norwalk, not yet. Loki wasn’t there anyway. According to the scrap of an admission file – most likely an oversight from someone tasked with purging any mention of him from the records – the base right outside the city was where Loki was taken right after they arrived back on Earth. And it was clear from Fury’s words that he was transferred… somewhere.

It was still a good place to start, but she had to be careful. It wasn’t a SHIELD facility, just a military base, used by various agencies and, it turns out, Council’s own forces. Why they even needed those always seemed weird to Natasha, SHIELD was supposed to be Council’s extension. Then again, SHIELD was a state agency, while the Council was not, and it was designed to provide oversight, not establish direct control. Some discord had to find its way in there, sooner or later, especially after that massive fuck-up with the nuke.

The final report didn’t even mention the warhead’s original target. All it said was that it was used in coordination with Stark’s Iron Man to bring down the mothership. They tried to kill millions of people, more than the swarm ever could, yet no one was even held responsible for the decision.

She browsed through the rest of the report too, looking for clues, potential hints about what the Council could want with Loki. She played the recording from the Pegasus facility, at least the part from the Tesseract chamber that managed to upload to the cloud before the base blew up, and watched Loki kill seven people with little hesitation. She knew that it happened, she knew why he did it, but it was still hard to watch. The fact that he looked extremely confused and like he was about to collapse any minute made it in no way easier and only reminded her of his fate immediately before that moment.

It came to the part where Loki used the scepter to turn Barton then jammed and stopped playing. She skipped forward, but the rest of it was just a muffed, pixelated mess, then the player crashed. Maybe it was for the best, just seeing Clint’s eyes turn dark and then bright blue churned in her stomach and she suspected seeing the rest of it wouldn’t be any more pleasant.

She went through the casualty list, trying to find the man Loki mentioned, the one with Hydra in his brain. It turned out a harder task than she expected. There was a list from the facility, the guards in Stuttgart (apparently Schafer, the man whose eye Loki took in the opera house, survived and made full recovery, sans the eye), the staff on the Helicarrier, and then the people from New York (the number was a lot lower than the initial estimations, landing in low hundreds instead of thousands), but nothing more. She went through unsolved homicides for Brooklyn, where Loki’s base of operation was situated in an abandoned warehouse, then for the entirety of New York and then surrounding towns, at first for a week, then a month after the invasion but found nothing that could match.

Her own report was still showing up as “due”, as she never got to finish and submit it. Clint’s one was full of holes and little inconsistencies, but the transcripts of interviews and re-examinations he went through later proved a bit more helpful. The further from the battle they dated, the more coherent and more informative they’ve grew. Just like Loki, Barton had a hard time differentiating between the wishes of the scepter and his own wants and feelings, but the memories came back fully, in the end.

She kind of wished they didn’t, judging from the content.

The fact that not everyone in Loki’s circle of henchmen was mind controlled was another surprise, if of a different kind. Clint was a bit fuzzy on the details there, as they were apparently the enemies of SHIELD he _knew about_ beforehand.

Then she got to the relevant piece of info. She read and reread the transcript, then followed the link at the bottom to watch the video recording.

It showed a dropdown isometric view of a stock standard interrogation room, a metal table bolted to the floor and two flimsy plastic chairs, currently empty. The timestamp and filename in the bottom corner informed her it was recorded at the Triskelion, a week and two days after the attack.

The door to the interrogation room opened and Clint Barton stepped in. It felt out of place, seeing him in his regular clothes in such a sterile, obviously militaristic environment; unless he was home, he tended to wear standard issue cargo pants and gray t-shirts. She knew him long enough to know the choice wasn’t random, no, he was driving a point home. A point that he was still a human after all. Well, Clint did pick up a thing or two from Natasha’s repertoire over the years.

Clint looked at his wristwatch then scoured the undeniably empty room before sitting down in one of the chairs and shooting a nasty smile at the camera. She fast forwarded the next ten minutes of him growing more and more impatient, toying with the buttons of his shirt and dragging his fingers over the edge of the metal table.

There was a sound of the door opening on the other side of the room and a woman in formal civilian clothes stepped in, her face obscured by the position of the camera.

“Agent Tucker,” Clint acknowledged her with a brief nod. Natasha didn’t know anyone of that name who worked at the Triskelion, so it was either a fresh transfer of someone from a division they never interacted with.

“Good to see you again, agent Barton. Please excuse my lateness, there were some unexpected affairs that had to be dealt with.”

“It's all good, it's not like I have anywhere to be,” Clint said and smiled at her. It looked genuine, but Natasha knew Barton enough to know that it wasn't.

“Well, if I’m not mistaken, you’re scheduled for your final psychological reevaluation later today and, if all goes well, you'll be cleared for active duty.”

Clint shrugged and nodded. The smile was gone.

“So, is there anything new that came to you since we last spoke… When was it, two days ago?”

Clint nodded again. “Kind of.”

She pulled out an old-fashioned clip pad with a page of tight machine print clipped to it then noted something on the margin. Resolution of the recording was not high enough for the writing on it to be readable. “Care to elaborate?” she prompted.

“I remembered what happened to agent Cole. The man I grabbed from the SHIELD’s armory and brought to Loki to change.”

“Yes, it’s all right here, agent Barton,” the woman said, tapping her pen on the clipboard, without looking up at Clint. “We were working under the premise that the control unraveled and he escaped.”

“Well, the control did fail for some reason, but he didn’t escape.” Clint curled his hands into fists and clenched his jaw. “I put him in the trunk and dropped him in that back alley behind the motel, right where he was found.”

“You let him go?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

Clint licked his lips and narrowed his eyes. “I’m not sure. I was ordered to deal with the man after he went nuts. So I did.”

“You weren’t ordered to kill him?”

“No. I would if I were,” he added bitterly, “even if it was implied. But it wasn’t.”

“Do you know why?”

“No. I just… It was Loki’s wish for the man to be gone, not to be dead. There was a grey zone there and I used it, I think.”

She scribbled something on the page again. “I see. Is there anything else?”

Clint took in a long breath and his fingers dragged on the edge of the table again. “No… I mean, it’s nothing solid. Just… a feeling. I’ve told doctor Hasher about that already and he thinks that it’s just an aftereffect of the scepter’s control on my mind.”

“You’re free to share those here as well. We never know which parts could be useful, do we?”

Clint grunted out a reluctant agreement. “So, you know how the control worked, right? It projected Loki’s wishes and overwrote my own will,” he paused and sat up, resting his hands on the table and looking her in the eyes. “I was commanded, and I obeyed without questions. I had no other choice.”

“That's the assumption we are working under, yes.”

Barton rolled his eyes at the “assumption” part and Tucker left if without a comment.

“I feel like there was _something_ else there, too,” Clint muttered. “I don’t know how to describe it, precisely, but – underneath those direct orders – there was this sort of... stream of consciousness, of half-formulated thoughts, feelings. Frustration and boiling anger and... Fear, deep, primal fear. I thought that was that was just another way to assert control, to make sure I did what I've been told, to force me into submission. But then I read the preliminary reports from the experiments R&D did with the scepter. It does something to hijack the frontal lobe connections and rewire them, making it impossible to make any sort of conscious decision not in line with the wish of whoever wields it. It can be used by humans with a relative success.”

“You shouldn't have this level of clearance when you're still on your probation period.” There was no real reprimand in her voice, only a dry statement of facts.

“You should complain to director Fury directly then, not to me.”

The way agent Tucker squared her shoulders at that made Natasha absolutely certain that she did. “So, what do you think this – as you put it – stream of consciousness meant?”

“Loki's thoughts seeping over the link.”

“What makes you think that?”

Clint made an impressive “are you fucking kidding me, I've just told you” face before answering. “Think about it. Humans don't do well in too stressful situations. And we were the strike team, the vanguard. Why hobble us with unnecessary doubts and fears? Also, those grew stronger when he lost his focus, when we were waiting for the next move or just resting before...” he cut himself off. “You catch the drift.”

“The strategy division went through the entirety of Loki's plan back and forth and judged it highly risky and not tactically valid. Your observation, if true, doesn't stand out as uncharacteristic in that context.”

“The thing is – as hard as it is to praise someone who did to you what he did to me – Loki could plan ahead and anticipate opponents' moves without much effort. But the framework of the whole invasion was just sloppy and every move he made us take was just postponing the inevitable.”

“And what is your take of that?”

“It wasn't his plan. And he was afraid of whoever coined it.”

Agent Trucker didn't respond, only made another note on the notepad.

“Before you write if of as a sympathy for the devil, Stockholm syndrome or whatever fancy words you’re going to use, let me tell you one more thing,” Clint demanded.

“Yes, agent Barton?” she stopped and raised her head.

“What Loki did to me – to us – was despicable and I hate his guts. And I still plan to put an arrow – or hollow point bullet if that doesn’t work – through his head if he ever shows his ugly mug on Earth again. But that doesn't mean we should ignore the fact that he wasn't here just because he wanted to redecorate Lower Manhattan. Someone has sent him. And, even if Loki is gone for good, there’s no reason to assume his boss is going to stop further attempts just because Hulk smashed his lapdog into a concrete floor a few times. Make sure to note _that_ down.”

She paused the video – according to the transcription there wasn’t much past that point anyway – and stared at the screen, still showing the frozen image of Clint, his hand on the table clutched in a fist.

There was so much to unpack here.

Even though Clint’s reasoning was faulty – he had no idea Loki was working under duress and acting against his own will – he still reached a proper conclusion. And SHIELD knew that, which meant the Council knew as well. For months now and they still did fuck-all about it then wasted at least two weeks without asking Loki a single question, deciding instead to use that time to… She didn’t even want to think about what exactly, although it wasn’t that hard to guess.

SHIELD didn’t even wait for the battle dust to settle to start experiments with the scepter. _Human_ experiments. Now Pierce had both the glowstick and Loki. Implications of that were disturbing at the very least.

Then there was agent Cole. The man with Hydra conditioning in his head. An agent of SHIELD. If Hydra had one person on the inside, how likely it was that there were more? The very thought made her break out in cold sweat. What if it was someone she knew? What if it was someone who she relied on during her previous missions or someone she would have to rely on in the future, if she had to run more of those? What if it’s someone with an access to Loki?

She squeezed her eyes shut, but it only brought more horrific images to her mind’s eye.

Her core shimmered at the edge of her awareness and she pulled it forth, finding consolation in the way it gleamed and changed. She let it extend past her body and the solid presence of the room around grounded her and mellowed the fear rattling in her brain. She was here, she was still alive, and she was going to solve it, even she was alone with this.

She always was, in the end.

Well, Agent Cole was still alive too. And it looked like they needed to chat. She pulled up the SHIELD database and searched away.


	33. Visiting hours

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Natasha finds a conversation very educational.

Jordan Cole was not that hard to locate once she knew the name. He was in a psychiatric hospital upstate, diagnosed with Delusional Disorder. There wasn’t much detail in the file, as he was no longer an active agent, but she had her suspicions where the “delusional” part might come from.

It was ten in the morning and she considered hopping into the car right away, then decided against it. As much as she wanted to do something, anything, to push her search forward, she couldn’t do so without resting and her body started to demand it too.

She didn’t bother with the bed, just pulled a pillow and a blanket down and curled up on the floor. She would try the bed tomorrow, she decided.

\---

It wasn’t an alarm clock that woke her up, but a phone call. It was Clint.

“Hey,” she said, her voice raspy. She didn’t clear her throat, on purpose. “What’s up?”

“Did I woke you up?”

“Yeah, you kind of did. I drove back home yesterday and got here late. I’m sleeping it off.”

“Sorry. I just wanted to check if you’re doing all right.”

“I am.”

“How did the talk with Fury go?”

“Just as you’d expect. He told me no and to get my shit in order.”

“I always knew he was a smart man,” Clint laughed and she was thankful it was not a video call, for she was not able to hold back a scowl. “So, what are you going to do now?”

She stifled a sigh. “Get my shit in order, I suppose.”

“Good call,” he laughed. “I knew you’ll come to your senses.”

She kept silent, letting the wave of anger wash over her.

“You there?”

“Yeah.”

“I’ve got to go. Talk to you later, Nat!” he said and hung up without waiting for a reply.

She tossed the phone away angrily. It slid over the carpet and hit a wall.

 _Fuck_. She knew Clint meant good and that he was saying what he was saying just because he cared but it was getting harder to bear every time. Maybe if she tried to explain, if she told him about… _No, Natasha. You can’t risk it. You might be able to fool Fury, but Clint knows you too well. He would know. And he would try to stop you._

She knew she won’t be able to go back to sleep, so she dragged herself up and into the bathroom.

\---

“And who are you in relation to the patient?”

“I’m his niece, sir.”

The receptionist typed away on the keyboard, using just his index fingers. It took a while.

“And what’s your name again?”

“Kaylee, uhm, Kayleigh Wallace.”

“There’s no one under that name listed in his contact file,” said the clerk, without looking up from the screen. “And shouldn’t you have the same last name?”

“It’s my father’s name, sir. And my uncle would not expect me to come,” she said, amplifying the Southern accent she was using. The man was from Arkansas, after all. “We weren’t that close, lately.”

“Why?” the man asked, without much interest, and continued typing.

“My mother… I mean, Uncle Jo’s sister and uncle, they didn’t get along.”

“I would have to confirm it with his doctor first,” he said, but didn’t move to pick up the phone or search for the doctor himself.

“Oh, okay.” She made a disappointed face. “Can you do that, please?”

“Uhm. You’ll have to wait, miss. Doctor Burgen left a few minutes ago in a hurry and didn’t say when he’ll be back.”

In about an hour, was the proper answer, once he finds out that his seven-year-old son did not, in fact, get into a fight in school.

“Can you call him, maybe?” she asked, smiled sheepishly and brushed a lock of blond hair away from her face. Wearing wigs with hair so short was a lot more comfortable. She might keep it that way.

The clerk grunted, but reached for the phone finally, then pulled out a small notebook from a drawer and searched for the number before dialing it. Very slowly. The reception desk staff was clearly paid by the hour.

He held the handset to his ear for a couple of seconds. “The phone seems to be off,” he announced. It wasn’t off, but the small scrambler under the hood of the doctor’s car was working just fine. “You’ll have to wait or come by some other time.”

“Can you try again, sir? Please?” she pleaded. “I have a flight back to Jonesboro at eight and I still need to hitch my ride back to New York. My mother would kill me if I missed it.”

The man snarled something about insistent brats under his breath but picked the phone back up and dialed the number again, apparently completely unaware of the redial function. The effect was similar to his last attempt. He huffed in irritation. “Wait here,” he ordered, then sauntered away from the desk and towards the reinforced glass doors, dividing the atrium from the main facilities. It opened with a buzz when he waved his employee card at the reader and closed behind him.

Natasha stayed by the front desk and discreetly swept the space. There was a camera right over the counter and another one aimed at the – currently empty – waiting area. There was one door leading outside to the parking lot, through a glass vestibule, one leading further into the building – the one the clerk has disappeared behind – and one marked “staff only” in the corner behind the desk, probably leading to welfare facilities which may or may not have their own exit. It was secured with an ID card reader as well. In her preliminary reconnaissance she saw two more exits leading out of the building in the back, but they led into the walled-in courtyard and the gate leading out of it was remotely activated. There was no security personnel she could see, but still, the front door was the most convenient exit route. It would be preferable to just walk out, too, without raising any suspicions.

So far, so good.

She tapped her fingers on the counter with a display of anxiety appropriate for the situation and shifted weight from one leg to another.

There was a tv turned on in the waiting area. The audio was muted, but the images of Tony Stark and the news anchor interviewing him were clear enough for her to read lips. He spoke about the new initiatives in clean energy SI just launched and about looking forward to the future while the reporter batted her eyelashes and fawned at each answer. It was all precooked PR bullshit, cut in bite-sizes for the afternoon television.

Life went on, like nothing has ever happened.

Or maybe not. Stark was hiding it expertly and the makeup did a good job too, but he looked worn, like he wasn’t sleeping well. And then, when asked about his post-invasion efforts, he grew jittery and his eyes skittled to the side before he got a hold of himself, flashed a glib smile and offered the reporter a vague, meaningless statement about “making the best of a bad situation” that she promptly ate up.

They all had their demons, it seemed, and being a billionaire superhero didn’t make one impervious to them.

“That guy is a hack, I tell you,” said the clerk, standing next to her, smiling knowingly. “There’s no way it’s him in that armor. It’s just some poor fella who is not getting any credit. Or a drone.”

“I really wouldn’t know, sir,” she said and smiled back. “How’s my uncle?”

“You’re one lucky gal, miss. He is coherent enough today. He looks forward to seeing you.”

“Thank you, sir.”

He waved at her to follow and led her into the facility proper, down the windowless hall and into a visitation room. The floor there was covered with fluffy carpet, the walls were painted in bright colors, there was a children’s playing area in one of the corners and venetian blinds did a great job at hiding the bars that secured the windows from the outside.

“Wait here, the nurses will bring your uncle over.”

She sat at one of the tables.

A few minutes later the door at the other side of the room opened and Jordan Cole was led inside, accompanied by a male nurse on each side.

With his hair no longer neatly trimmed and unshaved face he looked a lot more disheveled than he did on the photos. His head was down, his eyes firmly at the floor, and his hands hung loosely on his sides as he shuffled in.

The men escorting him let go of his arms and he stumbled forth half a step before he caught his balance. They didn’t follow him further into the room. “There’s an emergency button there,” one of them said, pointing to a red, obnoxious button marked “emergency” on the wall. “Press it if you need assistance." Then they stepped out, locking the door behind themselves.

Cole slowly raised his head and studied her for a moment, then he came closer and sat down at the opposite side of the table.

“Hello, Mr. Cole.”

He stared at her for a while longer, slouched in his seat. The pose was that of detached apathy, but his eyes were sharp and watchful. Observing and analyzing. It was a good act, all things considered.

“I’d remember if I had a niece like you,” he said finally. “Or if I had a sister.”

She nudged her head at the camera in the corner, but Cole shrugged. “Those record no sound, and no one gives enough shit to watch. This is a government funded facility; they won’t care as long as I don’t stab you with a shiv.” He kept his voice low though.

“Yet you’re here on your own volition.”

Cole sat back and regarded her with a scowl. “You’ve done the baseline of your homework at least.”

“Why?”

“I’m insane, haven’t you heard? A danger to society and myself. It should’ve been in the very same file you’ve read.”

“Are you?”

“Is this an interrogation? I’ve done those already. You’re not going to learn more from me than your colleagues did. You can save yourself the time.”

“I just want to talk.”

“Here, we talked. You can go back and report that to your bosses, whoever they are these days.”

“I don’t think I am who you think I am.”

He crossed his arms and leaned back further, balancing the chair on back legs haphazardly. “Not my niece, that’s for sure,” he said.

She smiled. “You don’t seem crazy to me.”

“I had an alien in my head, how could I be not?”

“Others are fine.”

He shrugged. “Maybe I’m just a special case then.”

“You’re hiding.”

His eyes squinted, then he laughed. “Oh yes, and it would work great if not for the procession of agents and shrinks SHIELD sends to squeeze the precious intelligence out of me, every week. I’m surprised the facility haven’t installed a revolving door yet.”

“I’m not here on the behalf of SHIELD.”

Cole drew his eyebrows in and glared at her for a moment. “Well, that’s foolish of me to not see that coming. How did they managed to snag you then? Did they introduce you to the machine or just the promise of the brave new world did the trick, agent Romanoff?”

She didn’t expect him to recognize her but was still able to keep a neutral expression. “I’m not with Hydra either.”

He cringed at the mention then scratched his bearded chin as he pondered on her words. “That’s a new approach, I’ll the first to admit. Let’s assume, for the time being, that I believe you. So, the question is, if you’re not with them, why are you here? How do you even know about them? And me?”

“From Loki.”

The cynical skepticism disappeared from his face in an instant and he stared at her. “He’s back?” There was a note of uncertainty in his voice. “What does he want from me?”

“Nothing,” she said. “But _I_ would like to talk. Because, judging from what Loki told me it looks like we might have a common enemy, agent Cole.”

“And you believed it?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“I have my reasons that are not important in this discussion. The point is, I know what Loki saw in your head, I know what he told me about it is true, and I need to get to the bottom of this, before more lives are lost.”

Cole stared at her for a moment longer, then lowered his head. His hands were curled into fists on his knees. “I never asked for any this to happen,” he muttered.

“I know.”

He sighed. “I don’t know how much he told you, how much he saw…” He paused, straightened up and looked her in the eyes. “It is out of your league. Out of your Avengers colleagues’ league too. You have no idea how deep it runs.”

“That’s what I want to find out. That’s why I’m here.”

He shook his head. The pity was evident in his eyes, even if she wasn’t sure if it was meant more for her or for himself.

“How much do you remember?”

He fixed his gaze on her, observing, judging and weighing his options, before he finally spoke. “I remember… everything, more or less.”

She blinked.

“Whatever it was that our alien _friend_ did to me… It opened something. A sluicegate, that was left closed, hiding all the memories they didn’t want me to have, and it all tumbled out, piece by piece. I may understand little of the meaning behind them, can’t put them in a proper order, but now my experiences makes sense, at least. It’s a blessing and a curse, all in one. And I don’t want this to change. I don’t want this to go back to the way it was before. As long as I’m here, I’m not a threat, just a crazy guy stuck in a loony. No one would believe me, even if I talked, and getting to me is too much hassle. But once I make a step outside, they will find me and they will wipe me, making me their puppet again. And I doubt that I’ll stumble upon another alien who decides to play with my mind and inadvertently frees me from their control anytime soon.”

“You don’t resent Loki for what he did to you?”

Cole shrugged. “I suppose I should, shouldn’t I? That’s what the shrinks here keep on telling me. That would be a healthy reaction, they say. A proper, sane one. But I can’t, not truly. I know it wasn’t his intent, just a collateral effect of his meddling, but he freed me, whether he meant it to happen or not.”

“I think he did,” she said quietly. She couldn’t tell Cole a lot more, but that much he deserved to know. “He recognized the control Hydra had on you for what it was and tried to lift it, only it didn’t work out as intended.”

Cole let out a drawn sigh. “It seems I’ll have to thank him if I ever meet him again. But most of all I hope I won’t.”

Natasha smiled at him encouragingly. “Can you tell me what you remember, then? Any detail might be useful.”

Cole licked his lips. “I still haven’t sorted it all out fully. I don’t think I ever will. I know they conscripted me when I was fresh out of the academy, just as I joined SHIELD. Their ideals looked promising to a young, naïve man I used to be. It wasn’t just me, a lot of recruits fell for their trap. We were promised we are to be a part of something bigger, something larger-than-life, a part of the new world order where the law and justice rules, not money or power or strength. Where threats are eliminated before they can act, creating safer, happier society of the future.

“For a time, it was good. My orders from my superiors in SHIELD and my secret bosses aligned and it felt like I was just providing oversight, making sure that SHIELD operated within law given to them by the people we were employed to protect. It didn’t last all that long though. The higher in the hierarchy I got, the more questionable the orders grew. I was asked to share classified information or carry out sabotages on the missions my unit worked for months. All the time I was told it’s just a part of a greater plan that I can’t yet see in its full glory and that the time will come and I believed, because what else was I supposed to do?

“Then I became an authorized field agent and with that came the more covert operations. Kidnappings and assassinations carried under the SHIELD banner but serving other purposes. At that point my whole team consisted of insiders, so there was no need to hide our true allegiances between ourselves, we just had to take care of bystanders. And take care we did…” Cole’s voice wavered, and he cleared his throat, then rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand. “There could be no witnesses because the world was not ready for the great plan yet. It didn’t matter if they were guilty or innocent, if they knew, they had to die. I started noticing things, too. Not everyone was in because of the ideals, no, some were there just because they enjoyed the violence, the blood, the killing. Being a part of Hydra allowed them to carry out their dark fantasies without consequences, outside of the jurisdiction of law. Only then I realized I’ve become what I was promised to fight.”

“You wanted out.”

“Very much. But it’s a one-way ticket, you either serve them or you die, especially someone as deep in as I was. At first it was just threats. They knew where my mother lived and they described, in great detail, what they would do to her if I betray them. So I stayed for another year, pretending I changed my heart, until I found an opening. I had a friend who I could trust, who promised to organize a safe passage for my mother to a remote place in Canada, while I deserted during a mission in Chile. I hoarded evidence I thought would help me make a case. Mission reports, surveillance materials, material evidence I was supposed to destroy. I intended to send it all to the authorities.”

“The authorities?”

“NSA, CIA, Department of State, whoever else it might concern.”

“It didn’t work out.”

“I thought I covered my tracks, but it took them just three days to find me. I thought they would kill me, like I was ordered to kill all those people, but I wasn’t so lucky. I don’t know why. I’m nothing special, I should be expendable, just another MIA agent, like dozens of us every year. But I must have my use, because they still brought me back to US and ran me through the machine. Over and over and over, until there was nothing left of who I was. Everything after that is just… a jumble. A painful mess of unconnected memories. The longer the time between the sessions, the more aware I grew, more of _me_ came back. I think I tried to run, once or twice. And they brought me back and wiped me, making me their mindless slave again.” Cole took in a long breath, rolled his shoulders and gestured around. “This isn’t perfect, but at least I’m allowed to think for myself here.”

“Can you tell me more about the machine? What is it, how it works? Where they keep it? Loki guessed it induces a state of hypnosis but couldn’t say more than that.”

“I… I don’t know,” Cole said. His efforts to keep a straight face were even more evident now. “I couldn’t see where they were bringing me, it could be a different place every time. Then I was strapped to a chair… and there was… pain. Lots of it. Electricity, I suppose, and flashing lights and blinking images. Some trigger words too, I think… I can’t make out more than that, it’s all a blur, even now.”

She nodded in acknowledgement. It was obvious he didn’t know how the technical side worked and pushing him on it wouldn’t do anything but traumatize him all over again. “Do you know what their endgame is? Control for control’s sake doesn’t mean much. They have to be playing towards something.”

Cole shook his head. “I only know what I’ve been told. The brighter future for all mankind, but we both know how much of a bullshit this is.”

“Do you still have the evidence?”

“No. I sent it out immediately and kept no copy. I didn’t want to risk it.”

“You’ve sent it? And?”

“I think you’d have noticed if there was a senate committee on a secret organization growing inside US government structure. It was either interjected or just swept under the rug.”

 _Shit_. “How deep does it run?”

“Given the amount of freedom they operate with, they must have at least its units directors, not only in SHIELD but in other agencies as too, but it might run as high as Fury just as well, or even the World Council for all I know.”

She did her best to school her expression. That was worse that she anticipated, much worse. “Do you know any names?”

“Some, but only people on my level, and it’s likely it’s not even all there is. You’re safer to assume it could be anyone you didn’t vet yourself. And the hierarchy is strict. I only received my orders from one person this whole time, I have no idea who stands above them. There are others, in the memories, but I can’t put names to those faces, no matter how hard I try. I’m not sure if I ever learned them.”

“Above whom?”

“Jasper Sitwell.”

She bit down a curse.

“It looks like you wasted your time coming here.”

“To the contrary, I found our conversation very educational,” she said as she worked to unclench her jaw. “You didn’t tell any of that to anyone yet, is that correct?”

“Of course I did not, I’m not a moron.”

“Yet you told me. You don’t believe me and you told me nonetheless.”

He shrugged. “If they managed to get to _you,_ I’m dead anyway. Besides, you strike me as someone who is good at listening.”

“Yeah,” she smiled and couldn’t help it when it turned out a tad bitter. “I’ve been told that before.”

“Agent Romanoff?”

She inclined her head to indicate him to go on.

“What do you intend to do?”

“I intend to solve it, even if it takes burning SHIELD to the ground,” she said, meaning every single word. 

\---

She stopped by the reception desk on her way out, with a small stumble in her steps that made it look like an action taken as an afterthought.

“Thank you for helping me out there, sir,” she chirped and smiled sweetly, leaning over the counter. “It was really great to talk to my uncle again.”

“No probs, miss,” the clerk mumbled, trying to not look at her chest just inches from his face and failing miserably.

“I hate to ask you for one more favor, but it took longer than I thought, and I won’t have time to stop to print out a boarding pass for my flight. Would it be much of a problem if I asked you to print it for me?” she said, pointing her chin at the device on his desk.

“Sure,” he said with a shrug.

“Here.” She handed him a thumb drive. “It’s the only file there.”

He plugged it into his computer and fumbled with the printer driver for a couple of minutes, unaware of the small yet very effective program that was just embedding itself into the facility’s internal network, deleting every file created in the last two hours. Better safe than sorry.

The clerk handed her the print and the drive, and she thanked him briefly, just as Doctor Burgen stepped through the front door. He looked pissed when she passed him in the foyer and headed towards the main gate to get to Stark’s car she parked around the corner.

\---

She drove back to New York, her brain reeling from the info Cole provided. Jasper fucking Sitwell, of all people. The dude who went to movie trivia nights at local bars and bought his coworkers juice boxes in cafeteria. Then the entire Strike Squad Lambda, the unit Cole was the part of before he was transferred to the guard duty in armory, probably to keep him out of sight but still with full SHIELD credentials. Then fuck knows who else.

This was bad. Really, really bad. For her, for Loki, and for everyone who wasn’t Hydra, be it a member of SHIELD or otherwise.

That also meant that her every contact, every piece of her extensive web of helpers, enablers and informers could be a double agent, working for a damned new Nazi world order.

She was almost certain Clint was on her side, but he was also the only person she couldn’t go to, at least for now. Fury was most likely out of it, too, he was sticking to his ideals too strictly to get lured with any promise like that, but her surety got somewhat diminished by his refusal to help. She couldn’t risk going to him, not right now. Later, she would. Hydra wasn’t going anywhere and ensuring Loki’s safety was the priority now.

Everyone else could just as well be her enemy.

Besides Loki.

The irony made her laugh so hard she had to pull over and get herself in order before she could continue.


	34. Break

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Natasha's training becomes useful for once and then she has a brush with the local folklore.

Down in the deepest bowels of the Earth, in a place without light or fresh air or sound other than screams and the unending buzz of machines, Loki was jostled back to reality by an electric shock, informing him that they were not yet done with him for the day. Or night. He couldn’t say, for he had no way of telling one from another.

He didn’t bother trying to count either, even he could find the mental capacity to focus on anything else than drawing one labored breath after another. Time was a concept that applied to the living. To people with things to do and places to be. He had no use for it in the Void and he had no use for it now.

They came and went. Sometimes asking questions they did not give him a chance to answer first, other times just getting straight to work. A string of indifferent voices and hands Loki could not muster an effort to remember.

At first, he thought that, perhaps, they’d grow bored with him, eventually. Or make a mistake, pushing just one step too far, allowing him to topple over and to the other side, into the welcoming embrace of nothingness. But they never did. They kept on bringing forth new forms of torment to try and always knew when to stop to keep him at the edge.

Wishing to die yet unable to.

That was already a too-familiar feeling.

\---

It took Natasha more than a week and two more trips to DC to wrap things up with SHIELD, at least temporarily.

She went through multiple interrogations, first with agent Tucker, who turned out to be a transfer from Baltimore and a permanent acquisition for her department, then with two other agents from Internal Affairs. She begrudgingly stuck to the advice Fury gave her, censoring any parts that might put her allegiance into question, but still refused to put anything incriminating about Loki in her testimony. No, he did not kidnap her, they were attacked, and he acted in self-defense. Yes, he collaborated and did not try to hurt her at any point in time and her injuries were acquired elsewhere, but their communication was hindered by his inability to speak. No, he really could not access his powers. Yes, they found an extraterrestrial creature to help them go back to Earth. No, she didn’t know what it was or why it helped because she couldn’t understand it. Loki didn’t know either, for all she knew. No, she didn’t know where they were. No, they didn’t make any other contacts. Yes, that’s all she remembers.

She filled out a hastily thrown together questionnaire about the planet they visited. Some of the queries made her sure the guys from the Scientific Research were in past their head in the subject. Seriously, how was she supposed to judge the acidity of the soil? She allowed them to run scans and blood tests and hook her into a battery of sensors. She was certain that at least that part of the questioning was far from over, but the excuse that she is still recovering worked, for now.

The wide-eyed enthusiasm the scientists regarded her with after the smallest bit of info she dropped only made her keenly aware of how much more they could learn from Loki and his extensive experience, especially compared to the incompetent fumbling she could offer as answers to their questions, if only SHIELD allowed him to talk, instead of locking him up in a cell. He was touchy when it came to personal subjects, but with this kind of general topics he would thrive. She could imagine his eyes brightening up at the very opportunity to flaunt his vast knowledge in front of those _ignorant mortals_.

She passed the preliminary psych evaluation in flying colors. She purposefully failed the endurance tests, earning herself a month-long sick leave. She would have to go through all this once again after that period was over, but it wouldn’t take nearly as long anyway, and she couldn’t give a shit about SHIELD after that.

Then she packed a bag, gave Stark’s flamboyant car a last longing look as she jumped into her very unassuming rental Prius. Then she drove to Norwalk.

\---

She stopped at a small, single-story motel on the outskirts of the town, in a low-density tertiary district. It was smacked right between a Dollar General and a petrol station and advertised itself with “truck parking” and “clean rooms” on the sign. While the former was self-evident, the latter soon proved quite a stretch. It would still do. She wasn’t going to stay here long anyway.

It was still before midday when she arrived, so she used the time to complete the disguise she planned to use. She bought some clothes and cheap-looking jewelry in a second-hand shop by the main street, then picked a variety of make-up in the drugstore, going for gaudy, bold colors. The choice of hair dye wasn’t too ample, so, after short deliberation, she settled for black. Blond was usually the go-to one for her and it went well with her complexion, but darker color would work better with the image she wanted to create. And, well, she did fancy black hair these days.

She dyed her hair in the motel bathroom and changed her clothes.

Then it was reconnaissance time.

\---

The base was located just outside of town, a mile of a gravel road connecting it to the main route out of town. At first glance it was nothing impressive, just a couple of single-story buildings, some outbuildings and a small airfield with a single hangar, surrounded with a rectangle of a mesh fence with a tumble of barbed wire on top. Two gates led in and out, each with its own security booth, with a single guard stationed inside.

It wasn’t anything that would catch uninformed onlooker’s attention. That was the whole point, the real deal was located underground anyway.

There were just two rows of barracks and no welfare facilities, no mess hall to speak of or even a cantina that she could see. Those were most often located above the ground, and the lack of them likely meant the staff used the establishments in town in their time off work. Some non-military personnel probably lived there, too, judging by the collection of civilian vehicles parked in front of the main building.

She stayed in her vanguard point, two hundred yards away from the eastern gate, where a patch of trees on a small hill provided all the cover she needed. Then she watched.

There weren’t any extraordinary security measures deployed, the point of the base was obviously to keep it as low profile as possible. There were two pairs of guards patrolling the perimeter in fifteen minutes intervals, wearing standard US infantry uniforms. The soldiers kept relaxed stances and talked between themselves often, which meant their role was more perfunctory than born out of an actual anticipation of an attack. There was also a couple areas where they would stop for a smoke or to pull phones out of their pockets, which indicated the CCTV cameras didn’t cover those in full.

She pulled on her magic and directed her attention to the base but couldn’t make out any details. She was too far away and there was too many people and too much equipment, all vibrating with energy, so she quickly dropped her scrutiny, feeling a creeping headache sprouting in her temples from the buzz it generated. She spent most of her evenings practicing and could see the results already, but it was still too much, too early. For now, she would have to depend on the old-fashioned methods of gathering intelligence.

There was a shift change for the non-military personnel at eighteen hundred, preceded by an influx of cars coming down to the gates – the night shift arriving at their posts. Most bore local license plates, but their variety did not point to any specific area, which meant the workforce could provide their own living arrangements and did not change very often.

Each car was stopped at the gate, but the check-up was a routine one, taking less than half a minute. The screening apparently wasn’t too thorough, then again, it was possible the guards just knew the employees’ faces and didn’t need to check their passes. No one was searching the trunks of the cars, but even the thirty second stop was enough for a cursory scan, if the guard posts were equipped with such scanning devices. She couldn’t tell just from the distance and there was no overview of the security systems for the facility in the SHIELD’s database. That was something she needed to find out, along with at least a barebone layout of the buildings, before she tried infiltration, if it ever came to that.

The night shift consisted of twenty-two people, men and women, dressed in civilian clothes. Most headed straight for the main entrance of the biggest building. That’s where the entry point of the underground part of the base was situated then.

Another couple of minutes has passed and the day shift workers started pouring out from the same doorway. There was at least three times as many people compared to the new arrivals and there were still some unclaimed cars left on the parking lot. The facilities operated on a skeletal crew during the night then, meant to sustain operations, while the main work was carried out during the day. It might also mean the shifts timings were asymmetrical, longer for the night and shorter during the day, but that was left to be verified. Still, early morning hours – before the facility started crowding up and the staff in place was less alert after a long night of work – would be the best time to try to get inside.

The sun has set, and the windows started lighting up, then the exterior lighting came on too. There were floodlights installed on high posts all thorough the base but those were left off, meant for emergencies only.

At eight there was a guard shift change, both for the perimeter security and inside the building. She counted around thirty men, some wearing military uniforms, some clad in black combat clothes without any visible denotations, often used by strike teams of various agencies. Those could be the SHIELD men, or even the Council’s forces, but they still headed for the same sleeping quarters as their army combatants, which meant there wasn’t much difference in function or standing between the two. Perhaps the men were even used interchangeably. Such a joint venture was not a common occurrence, even in facilities that were under use of multiple agencies the division of roles was always clearly defined, each institution manning their slip of the field.

It wasn’t an impressive force either, at least compared to the numbers of other staff. And even with that, it was obvious it was not an extensive compound, most likely just an auxiliary research unit, like hundreds of other establishments of this kind in every corner of the States. Why the hell would they take Loki straight here, instead of the Long Island headquarters, which was not only a lot more secure and explicitly equipped to handle detainees of his caliber, but also much closer? Even if Pierce wanted this to be handled on neutral grounds and not in a SHIELD-controlled facility, there were at least three similar bases within an hour of driving off New York, and Pierce could request the use of any of them for his purposes. Then there was the Triskelion with SHIELD HQ only taking a part of it, the rest staying under the scrupulous control of the Council, or the CIA base in upstate New York.

What was so special about this one?

Did it have something to do with the Hydra tumor growing inside SHIELD? And if so, what would that party want with Loki? Did they think his world conquering speeches were literal and that he would ally with them? That was possible, but it still didn’t explain the location.

It was unassuming, that’s for sure, but there had to be more than that. Was it something specific the base housed?

Whatever it was, the SHIELD database was silent about it and a cross-agency search would require her to submit an official inquiry first, setting everyone on her track and it was too early to burn that bridge. Fury most likely knew too, but he would tell her jack shit after how their previous conversation has turned out.

There was a rustle on the courtyard as a group of people exited the sleeping quarters. It was almost completely dark, so she switched the binoculars to the night mode and watched as the men crossed the yard and headed for the jeeps parked at the far end of the parking lot. They wore civilian clothes and chattered between themselves freely and loudly enough for the garbled echoes of their voices to reach her hiding place, but the magnification wasn’t good enough for her to read their lips. Some of them carried opened bottles of various alcoholic beverages and the uncertainty in their strides suggested the party has already started and now was being taken elsewhere to continue.

She quickly picked up her equipment, tousled the grass to mask the evidence of her presence, then headed for the car.

She reached the place where the dirt path connected with the asphalt road just in time to see the cars turning left and heading to town. She followed, keeping a safe distance.

They didn’t drive too far, they crossed the interstate and entered the town proper, turned right from the main street and pulled over in front of a small bar.

It looked like any other dive bar in a provincial town, white siding peeling off its front façade, a single neon adorning the main entrance. She waited a minute then pulled into the parking lot as well. She left the car at the far end, behind a dumpster and a pick-up truck that most likely belonged to the owner, judging from the way it was parked right next to the back entrance and from the row of empty beer kegs on its bed. It meant it wouldn’t be moved until the bar was closed, providing a cover for her obviously foreign car with New York license plates. Her cover story had a suitable explanation for that, but she would rather not use it if she didn’t have to.

The interior of the establishment looked exactly what she would expect from the esteem of the outer shell: a cramped, smoky room with poor lighting, sticky floor and eighties rock music blazing from the speakers. There was a long bar along one of the walls, a line of booths along the other, then a pool table and a dart machine in the corner, with floating tables taking the rest of the space.

The place was rather crowded, which was to be expected on a Friday night. She headed straight for the bar and ordered a margarita. She paid with cash, then sat at the counter and discreetly regarded her surroundings, sipping her drink. It had way too much sugar in it for her taste.

The men grabbed some beers and headed for the corner with the pool table, exchanging a few quick sentences with the band of teens that occupied it for now who soon collected their stuff and left, leaving the area for the soldiers with something that seemed like widely accepted understanding. She watched the group through half-closed eyelids with mild interest on her face. One of the guys noticed her already and pointed her out to his colleague in what he obviously thought was a discreet whisper. It would be, if Natasha couldn’t see his lips moving. She smiled at the guy, even if the compliment was crude at best.

She could hit them up right away, but she was in for the long game and there was no point in earning unneeded attention. Even in her current disguise of a provincial girl on her night out – skimpy shorts, a close-fitting blouse that showed too much of her cleavage, garish make-up, and a lot of cheap jewelry – she looked out of place sitting alone at the bar. All the other women sat either in groups or with their partners.

A group of five girls occupying a booth close to the pool table looked promising. There was no male accompanying them and they kept on shooting meaningful glances at the soldiers then laugh between themselves obnoxiously loud. Each had a drink or a bottle in front of themselves and the way they moved betrayed they were at least tipsy.

She approached the group and stopped two steps away from the table, tousling her hair nervously. “Hi,” she said.

One of the girls turned to her. Her pudgy face was covered with heavy make-up that made guessing her age hard, it could be anywhere between fifteen and thirty. Her hair was strawberry blonde with dark brown roots showing. “Can I help you?”

“Yeah, I think. I just moved to town and I don’t know anyone here,” Natasha said, raising her voice to get it heard over the music. She was using the New York accent.

The rest of the girls – who pretended to ignore her until now – turned to her. The tall, dark-skinned girl wearing a golden dress with shiny sequins sewn along the collar that looked very much out of place in this kind of locale – their leader, judging from the way the other girls in the group acted around her – spoke up. “So?”

“I was wondering if I could join you?” Natasha said, fumbling with the edge of her shirt then raised her hand to wave at them. She judged that would be the proper amount of confidence to fit right in: enough to come over and strike a conversation with a group of strangers, but not cocky enough to treat it like it’s not stressful. “Name’s Leeann, by the way.”

The leaded regarded her for a moment. “Yeah, why not,” she said, and the pudgy face scuttled over to make room for Natasha.

\---

The leader was called Tisha, and the pudgy-face introduced herself as Lotte, short for Charlotte. There was also Chloe, a quiet, short blonde, then Taylor and Kate, two sisters who immediately wanted Natasha to guess which one was the older one. She went with Taylor and missed, apparently.

The initial reservation melted away quickly with a round of drinks on her and her story about a girl from New York moving back to where her parents were from to find herself. She was a curiosity – an outsider – and just the fact she picked them stroke their egos in all the right ways. Before they knew, they spoke freely, like Natasha was one of their own.

“So, what do you do for living?” Lotte asked and fished a slice of lemon from the bottom of her empty glass with her long, fake nails, then stuck it in her mouth.

Natasha expected such questions. It was a small community, and a new arrival would always draw eyes. There was no malicious intent behind the questioning, just curiosity, and it gave Natasha a chance to test the integrity and impact of her backstory before the main event.

She shrugged. “Not much, for now. I just arrived. I’m starting job hunting tomorrow but for today I just wanted to get out and chill a bit. Get to know some people. Have fun, you know.”

Chloe nodded, understanding. Taylor was more persistent. “Hell, why would you leave New York and come _here_? People usually go the other way around.”

“The rent in New York can sink you if you don’t have anyone to split the bill with and being a waitress doesn’t earn you that much hard cash.”

“Still, you could go anywhere, why choose Norwalk?”

Natasha shrugged. “I don’t know to be honest. I cashed in my deposit and jumped into a car. I don’t think I ever knew where I was going until I was halfway here.”

“You know anyone here?”

Natasha shook her head and took a sip of her beer. “Nah. I was only here twice as a kid, when my grandparents were still alive.”

“Do you have a place to stay?”

“I stay at a motel for now. I’ll start looking for a more permanent place once I get a job. I still have some money left.”

“My aunt has a place to let,” offered Chloe, her cheeks turning red when Natasha turned her attention to her. “I mean, it’s not much, just a basement adapted to a flat, but it’s clean and cheap. Four hundred a month, I think. I can set you up if you want.”

“Yeah, sure,” Natasha said and pulled out her phone to note down the number.

“Ooh, fancy!” exclaimed Tisha, looking at her device. “Haven’t seen one of those in person yet. They go for like grand a pop, right?”

Natasha shrugged, cursing herself for not swapping the phone for something less outlandish. “George… uhm, my fiancé ordered it for my birthday. He must’ve saved for months to get it. It came in the mail after…” She paused and hung her head.

“You broke up?”

Natasha shook her head. “No. He… died. In the attack.”

There was an uncomfortable silence.

“I’m sorry,” Lotte said finally and squeezed her arm. “I lost my brother last spring. I know it’s hard, but it gets better.”

Natasha nodded in acknowledgement. “What happened?”

Lotte’s lips were pulled into a thin line as she gathered the resolve to talk. Taylor was quicker. “A driver rear-ended him on a bridge, and he crashed through the barrier into the river. The police found the truck abandoned just outside the town but never caught the guy. There were empty bottles in the car, so he was probably drunk.”

“That’s horrible. I’m sorry for your loss.”

Lotte rolled her shoulders and smiled. “It happens. Life goes on.”

“Yeah. Life goes on,” Natasha repeated, numbly.

“At least you know who did it, right?” Taylor pointed out. “They caught the guy, didn’t they? The alien dude, what was his name...”

Kate nudged her in the ribs, and her sister fell silent. Natasha didn’t have to work hard to call a look of dismay to her face. “I guess. I don’t like to think about it. It’s not like it changes anything. George is still dead.”

Taylor brought her hands down to the table. “You girl look like you need another drink,” she said and got up. “Another beer or something fancier this time?”

“Beer’s fine, thanks,” said Natasha and smiled. “So, what do girls of Norwalk do for fun?”

“This,” Tisha said, drawing a wide circle with her arms “is pretty much it. It must seem dull compared to New York.”

“The town has its perks,” Lotte added with a smirk and gave the group by the pool table a meaningful glare. “There’s a military base just out of town and the supply is always fresh, if you know what I mean.”

“Yeah, I’ve noticed.”

“So, which one is it?”

Natasha crooked her head. “The tan guy in the corner, I suppose.” Natasha singled the guy out almost immediately for how little he interacted with the rest of the men and didn’t take part in their bitching about unfair shifts timing and shit food rations. It might mean he was just less socially inclined. Or that his responsibilities at the base were different than those of his colleagues and there wasn’t much common subjects he could discuss with them.

Then there was something else. Something she couldn’t quite name. Something _off_ about him.

“That’s Marcus. I wouldn’t bother with him if I were you. Tisha worked him up for weeks and didn’t get as much as a drink.”

“Yeah,” Tisha said, keeping her voice down. “That dude is a robot, I tell you. He comes over with this group from time to time and sits in the corner all by himself, ogling the girls, but you can’t get him to say more than two sentences in a row. And even if you do get him to talk, it’s only some cryptic bullshit about his work. Seriously, he acts like he runs the entire place. Boo-hoo, bitch, like I care about your shitty job.”

The rest of the girls laughed.

“And the buffy blonde? The one with the cue?”

“He is new, it’s the first time…” started Tisha,

Kate interrupted her. “No, he was here on Tuesday. But yeah, he is new. So, what, you wanna go over and say hi?”

“I don’t know,” Natasha flustered, “I don’t think I can…”

“Come on, girl, you can’t sit on your ass and mourn for the rest of your life! You gotta have fun sometimes!”

The girls grabbed their drinks and Natasha allowed them to drag her over to the pool table and introduce her to the soldiers. It was perfect, for it was obvious the initiative was not on her side. She batted her eyelashes and smiled and shook every hand they extended to her meekly and before long they were talking and laughing and flirting. The sisters took the new guy – Stephen, which made Natasha snigger because he did look a bit like a Captain America knock-off too – for a spin, Tisha was quickly in the middle of a groping session with the burly bear of a man called Burgundy, while Natasha played darts with Benjamin, who apparently went with “Tick” among his mates, for the way his eyebrow twitched when he was nervous. It did that each time he noticed Natasha looking at him.

The midnight has come and passed, and the bar slowly emptied. Tisha disappeared somewhere along with Burgundy, so did the sisters, leaving Stephen with Lotte. The music was changed to some more recent pop hits, a couple of tables got pushed aside to create a dance floor, but it was mostly empty now.

Marcus stayed in his seat and would only leave it to grab another beer at the bar. He grunted a greeting when Natasha made her rounds introducing herself but didn’t say anything else. Natasha made a point of not paying him any attention, but still hovered close while she was smiling and flirting with Tick.

“It’s been a while since I had my ass whooped by a girl so thoroughly,” said Tick and blushed immediately. “At darts,” he added, and she graced him with a coy chuckle.

“I worked at a bar for years, so I picked a thing or two from the regulars,” she said. “It’s not the only thing I can do.”

The blush reached his ears and he turned to his bottle for salvation, draining half of it in one swig. “I’m going outside for a smoke,” he said. “Want to… join me?”

“Sure,” she said and brushed her fingers on his forearm. He retreated and skulked towards the door to save the rest of his face from burning to a crisp. Natasha rolled her eyes and followed.

“You know this stuff can kill you, right?” she said as she took a drag from a cigarette Tick lit up for her. Who said the chivalry was gone?

Tick laughed nervously. “So can a lot of other things.”

“True that.”

They smoked in silence for a while. Tick’s eyebrow twitched as he gathered his courage to speak.

She was quicker. “So, what’s your buddy deal?”

“My buddy? Which one?”

“Uhm, Marcus? I think that’s his name. He’s been eyeing me like I killed his pet chinchilla in a freak accident the whole evening.”

Tick shrugged. “I don’t know. He is not really our friend. He asked if he could come with us a few months ago and he tags along sometimes since then, not sure why.”

“He doesn’t look like the talkative type.”

“Yeah. He just sits there by himself and rarely speaks to anyone. It’s not like we have a lot to talk about.”

“Uhm, don’t you guys work at the same place? That ought to give you some stuff to talk about.”

Tick took a drag of his cigarette. “Well, not exactly. We run the perimeter; Marcus works in the basement.”

“The basement?”

Tick flustered. “I really shouldn’t be talking about it.”

“Sure thing.”

_Bingo._

She dropped the cigarette butt on the ground, squashed it with her heel, wrapped her arms around herself and rubbed her shoulders. “I’m going inside. It’s cold out here.”

“Yeah, I’m done too,” Tick said with a sigh. “I’m going to need another one of these,” he added, showing up the empty bottle in his hand. “Want some?”

“Yeah, thanks.”

Once inside, Tick headed for the bar and she plopped down on the empty seat next to Marcus nonchalantly, stretching her legs with a relieved sigh and crossing her arms at her chest. He regarded her with a sideways glare.

“What?”

He shrugged. “You’re not from here.”

“What gave you that idea? Was it the part where I said I just came to town or did you figure it out on your own?”

He bristled and grunted something unintelligible.

She sat up and propped her elbows on her thighs, then toyed with her bead bracelet, twisting it around her wrist, letting the string bit into her flesh. She didn’t miss the way his nostrils flared at the sight. _Oh, so that’s the kind of stuff you’re into._ She rubbed her wrists together and batted her eyelashes at him. “You seem to be having a tremendous amount of fun.”

“Not your goddamned business.”

“You’re always so eloquent or you’re putting in an effort just for me?”

He regarded her for a moment before he made his move. “I can show you what kind of effort I can put in, if you’re brave enough,” he said in a dark tone.

“Oh, I’m brave aplenty,” she teased and crossed her legs. “But what makes you think you can handle a naughty girl like me?”

He stared at her.

She bit her lip and winked.

His fingers curled into claws at his sides.

Then she got up, without giving him a chance to speak. She grabbed the bottle from Tick’s hand and dragged him onto the dancefloor, giving Marcus time to ponder. The cards were on the table and it was his turn now.

\---

The night winded down quickly after that.

Marcus didn’t approach her, but the seed has been sowed and she could see in his meaningful stares that it was already sprouting. As much as she would like to get it done and over with, some things couldn’t be rushed. She could work other angles first and wait for the right moment with him.

Even without that, she did read some valuable info between the lines of the conversations the men carried amongst themselves. There was no scanning process at the entrance, as it wasn’t without a precedence to sneak girls and huge amount of booze into the sleeping quarters. The security on the main part of the facility was a lot tighter though and regular soldiers were allowed only on the two top levels, the rest being covered by the “agency” men, although she did not find out which agency that was. It could be SHIELD, but most likely not exclusively. There was only a handful of names she was able to find in the database that would have at least a temporary designation to the base and there wasn’t anything in the last half a year. She couldn’t find which science team was part of the experiments Fury talked about either, so that must’ve been a part of some other project and the transfer files were purged, just like the rest of the recent data on Loki.

Tick orbited her like a satellite the whole time and she allowed him. He might have felt encouraged to take it further, but he was also too awkward to put forth the proposition and she wasn’t going to make it easy for him. He wasn’t her target anyway and it could only threaten her plan, so they ended it up with an uneasy kiss on the cheek before he was swept by his colleagues into one of the cars. He waved at her from the window and she held the smile up until the car turned the corner.

She returned to the motel, set the alarm clock for four in the morning, dragged a pillow and a duvet cover to the floor and went to sleep.

\---

It was ten past six when she reached her vantage point in the thicket by the base. Judging from the parking lot the night shift was still on.

Other than the soldiers making their tired rounds around the perimeter, their heads low and their weapons aimed solidly at the ground, there was no movement she could see inside the wire. The security guard by the Eastern gate was fast asleep on his post, his hat covering his face as he reclined in his seat.

She mounted a small camera to the tree trunk and left her post. The battery should last for the next day, so should the memory card. The resolution of the feed wasn’t nearly enough for close surveillance, but she would still be able to go thought the recording to trace the external traffic.

The town streets weren’t crowded, despite the early hour. It was close enough to Cleveland for people to commute daily and it seemed that was the path a lot of residents chose.

She ate breakfast at a small café by the main street. She pulled out her laptop and browsed local classified ads, until she found a ninety-five Ford Escort for sale. It looked miserable on the photos, the passenger side door and the hood cover had a different color, and the trunk hatch was eaten by rust, which meant it was perfect for the purpose she needed it for.

\---

The seller was a fidgety mom-of-three, living in the far corner of a trailer park. The paint was peeling off the wooden panels and the roof needed a renovation, so Natasha didn’t negotiate and paid the asking price. She still had a couple of hidden accounts for emergencies and even her official one just had the last four months of overdue salary deposited to it that she was yet to go through the hoops to clear out of it. And – as much as she didn’t want to chip into her rainy-day savings, she might need it once she got Loki out – the extra three hundred bucks she paid for the car shouldn’t make much of a difference.

She knew they might be forced to leave the country to get SHIELD off their tails and that was a costly endeavor if one wanted to do it without popping on the radar. There wasn’t any particular plan on where they could go, too much was uncertain and it was hard to predict any eventuality, but she had her preferences, nonetheless. Scandinavia felt like a good idea. Loki would enjoy the weather and his people were somehow inclined to that part of the globe before. Or UK, where his accent wouldn’t stand out, although she suspected he could pick a new one in no time. Or New Zealand. She always wanted to live there. Going back to Russia was not out of question either, as the strained relations between the country and US might work in their favor, but – as much as Loki might like the climate, especially in the more remote parts – there were too many memories she did not want to revisit. Still, it was an option if they had to go by a more official route.

Or perhaps he wouldn’t want to stay on Earth at all. With his magic returned he could go anywhere he liked, and he didn’t strike her as the kind of person to stay in one place for long, especially now, after his ties to Asgard and his abusive family have been finally severed.

Would he allow her to tag along? Would he even want her company when he had the whole universe to choose from? Or would she become just another insignificant dot on his biography, to be buried under the rabble of time? Was he angry at her for following her half-baked plan and landing him in this mess?

Yeah, he probably was.

She sighed. They would cross that river once they reach it, it didn’t change anything about what she had to do.

\---

She dropped the Prius at the rental and hitched her ride back, then dialed Chloe’s aunt number.

Calling the room in a basement “a flat” was a misuse of the term. The single window faced a stone retaining wall, and the ceiling was maybe at seven feet, with beams hanging even lower than that. But there was a sofa bed, a table with two chairs and a small kitchenette with a microwave, a two-burner stove, and a fridge. The small, attached bathroom was clean and there was a separate entrance leading to the quarters from the outside.

Chloe’s aunt turned out to be a sweet, middle-aged woman with frost in her hair and a wide smile on her face. The name was Edna and it fit perfectly.

“What about the deposit?” Natasha asked. “I’m not exactly swimming in money right now.”

“Oh, don’t worry about it, dear. You’re Chloe’s friend, aren’t you?”

“Well, we met not that long ago to be honest. I just moved to town.”

“Yes, Chloe told me about your fiancé, I’m very sorry to hear that.”

Gossip spread like wildfire in small communities like this one.

“Thank you,” Natasha said. “I need time to figure things out on my own. I think it would be easier here.”

“We have our problems like everybody else. But it’s important to keep connection with your roots. You’ll like it here.”

“Yeah, I’m sure I will,” Natasha said and smiled sweetly.

“Are you a church-going person? There’s a Baptist’s church not that far away from here.”

Edna went on to describe the virtues of her congregation while Natasha idly wondered whether Jesus was an alien mage too. That would explain a thing or two.

“Leeann?”

“Oh, yes, sorry, I kind of lost track there. You were saying?”

“Are you decided? I understand if you need time to think about it, but I have another person coming to see the place in a moment and…”

“Yeah, sure, I get it,” said Natasha, not calling out the blatant lie. “When can I move in?”

“Tomorrow? I just need to freshen up the place a bit, replace the drapes and the sheets…”

“Make it today and you got yourself a deal, Edna,” Natasha said, then shook the woman’s hand.

\---

She paid in cash, for the whole month in advance. It was cheaper than a week in the motel, would add validity to her backstory and make her harder to trace and invigilate upon, if someone was looking.

She wasn’t going to stay for the entire month, of course.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I uploaded a couple of chapters at once, because - despite all the info dump - there's not much going on and I didn't want to keep you waiting for something to happen only to find out nothing extraordinary comes down.


	35. Peace and quiet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which very little is truly quiet or peaceful.

Clint called, later in the afternoon, just after she finished unpacking. It didn’t take all that long. 

She hesitated for a few tones but decided to answer in the end. It was better that way, for a worried Clint meant a rash and irrational Clint and that could have catastrophic consequences.

“Hey.”

“Where the fuck are you?”

“In Ohio.”

“Why the fuck are you in Ohio?”

“Vacation? And you don’t have to yell, I can hear you clearly.”

“Don’t bullshit me. No one goes for a vacation to Ohio, especially not you.”

“I’m not bullshitting you. I know you can trace the call and I know you know I’m telling the truth.”

“You could be routing.”

“I’m not. Am I under investigation?”

There was a beat of silence before Clint answered. “Why are you doing this?”

“Doing what?”

“Taking revenge on me.”

“Revenge? For what?”

“For making you drop the Loki’s case.”

“There’s no _case_. And not everything in this world revolves around you, Clint. I’m not taking revenge on you, or anybody. I just needed a change of scenery. Call it as you wish.”

There was a flurry of movement on the other side. “I’m coming over.”

“No, you’re not. I don’t need a babysitter. I feel fine.”

“You’re clearly not. I saw your physicals results.”

“So now you’re stalking me?”

“We are spies, Natasha.”

“And here I am, sitting and thinking we are _friends_ , like a fool.”

There was another stretch of silence on the other end. “I can’t lose you, Nat. Not again.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” she said with a sigh. “I promise. I’ll be back in a couple of days; I’m just… being in the city among all those people, after so long time alone is making me nervous, I think. It’s better here.”

“But why Ohio?”

“I don’t know, I just picked a destination at random and I ran out of gas here, so that’s where I’m staying.”

Clint’s sigh rustled on the other side. “Just… call me if something happens, okay?”

“I will.”

Clint hung up in his usual manner, without saying goodbye. She collapsed onto the coach with a groan. There was a water stain on the ceiling, right above her head. It was shaped like Iceland, if she squinted.

_Yeah, that’s a good idea._

\---

She did her usual internet sweep. The tread with the video got a new reply and she opened it up, only to find out it was someone calling her an idiot. Well, then.

There was a news article about progress of the cleanup in New York that didn’t provide any real information, just turned over the same dry statements around a few times and praised the determination of the crews dealing with it. Most of the comments were just people arguing over the memorial that was apparently being erected in Saint John's Park. Like New York needed any more of those…

New York Times ran an interview with Steve Rogers, and she skimped it over. There was nothing interesting in it, just some general talk about what has changed in the world since his times (bananas and cars, apparently) and his plans for the future (“I try to make myself useful in any way I can in those trying times, mam”). Rogers came off just as virtuous and naïve as he did in person and Natasha tentatively added him to the list of most-likely-not-Hydra people she was slowly developing in her head. It was depressingly short, even with that new addition.

Rogers still wasn’t a good person to go for help to anyway, he was too righteous for that. She could play out the entire conversation in her head without even going through it, the appalled indignation in his eyes and the stern refusal in his words.

Loki was an enemy, and – by siding with him – so was she.

\---

She swung by the observation spot at the base before going to town for the evening. She swapped the batteries and the memory card, then returned to the car, where she watched the recording on fast forward. There was nothing out of the ordinary on it, no new arrivals, nor visitors, just the regular patrols that seemed to follow the exact same patterns she already noticed. The Saturday day shift was smaller than those on weekdays, which meant that – whatever it was that the base’s operations were focused upon – it wasn’t anything important enough to force full staff to work on weekends.

So, a weekend it was.

The security wasn’t tight and penetrating the perimeter shouldn’t be hard. That was one issue to strike off the board, at least. But there were others. She needed to reach the internal server access point, first and foremost. The data might have been scrubbed of the SHIELD and the Council databases, but there was a solid chance it was still stored locally, at least some of it. Fury said they’ve been forced to hand over test results, so those might be gone, but there ought to be something left. Surveillance records, employees report cards, transfer docs, anything. And, even if it was hidden behind a codename, it would still be easier to find on a local server, going by the date alone. There would be gigabytes of files to dig through – that she would have to do it by hand as she would not use SHIELD sanctioned software for that, and she had no access to anything else – but it’s still nothing compared to the entirety of the Council database from before. Plus, breaching the security protocols from the inside would be infinitely easier than doing it remotely, even supposing she still had access to required hardware and skills, which she had not.

That plan, even as rough and barebone as it was at this point, still carried a big “if”. She could go in and steal the data if she knows where to go, once she was inside. She couldn’t risk going in blindly and wandering inside for hours until she stumbled upon a computer that was connected to the server. She couldn’t hope to just guess the credentials required to access it. She needed a way into the main part of the facility and a login and a password, or at least an idea what sort of system it ran on, so she could procure an appropriate software to crack it beforehand.

She had an idea how to get the first one, at least.

\---

Marcus wasn’t in the pub that evening, none of his buddies were for that matter. According to the intel the girls provided it wasn’t anything out of the ordinary, but Natasha still felt a pang of disappointment. Her bait didn’t work as well as she hoped it would, or else he would be there. He was on the day shift today as well, she could recognize his silhouette on the recording, as he was leaving the facility at eight and heading for the sleeping quarters. 

Chloe was there though, so was Tisha and they noticed her just as she crossed the threshold, so she couldn’t leave without mingling for a while, or else it would be suspicious. So Natasha sat with them, sipping her drink, half-heartedly listening to their chatter and observing the patrons. Despite a sizeable crowd she couldn’t spot anyone from the base.

“Too bad you didn’t get to get it off with Tick,” said Tisha, after she finished recounting how her encounter with Burgundy went. “He is a sweet guy. A bit shy, but once you get that tongue loose...”

“C’mon, stop bullshitting her, Tay,” Chloe said. “We all know he is not your type.”

Tisha shrugged and laughed. “Yeah, yeah, I’m just yanking your leash. He is as pure and as untouched as those guys go.”

“I was never a fan of ‘pure’ anyway,” Natasha said, absently.

Chloe dropped the straw she was playing with back into the glass and turned to her. “How so?”

“It suggests there’s something wrong with not being that. You know, with the opposite of ‘pure’ being ‘dirty’? Like you’re somehow lesser just because you follow the natural calls of your body.”

“I like the way you put it,” said Tisha. “I’m definitely using it the next time my mother comes crawling up my butt.”

Chloe laughed. “Don’t tell my aunt that. She will give you a lengthy sermon on morals and living life the way Jesus intended. Don’t get me wrong, she is a sweet woman, but the bible thumping gets old sometimes.”

Natasha gave her a noncommittal chuckle, hoping it would be enough to end the subject.

It wasn’t.

“By the way, which denomination are you?” Tisha asked.

Natasha sighed in resignation. “None in particular,” she said with a shrug. There was never a strategically sound answer to such questions. Even if she struck her landing and guessed the exact flavor of religion her conversational partner followed, it only led to more questioning with a side of nagging.

Chloe squinted at her. “So you, what, don’t believe in god?”

“Depends entirely on which one you have in mind,” she said with a cryptic smile and got up to grab another drink, ignoring the weird glances the girls threw in her direction. They wouldn’t like the answer anyway.

\---

She made her excuses soon after. It wasn’t that she had anything much better to do – getting to Marcus was still the next objective of her plan and that had to wait – but she could feel the first signs of a headache creeping in. As hard as she found admitting it before herself, she was still not back at full health. She made it through the time on the island without suffering major consequences (not thanks to herself, for the most part) but still, the time she spent unconscious afterwards had an effect even on her enhanced physique. Little sleep, no exercise and irregular, unhealthy eating habits weren’t helping. Second night of drinking in a row would only make it worse, even if she was hardly tipsy the night before and felt completely sober now.

Finding Loki already took longer that she hoped it would and the search wasn’t anywhere close to being finished. She kept on postponing getting it all sorted for “after” and it was the high time to admit it’s not a valid strategy anymore. She won’t be able to help anybody if she can’t go on.

A full night of restful sleep would be a good start. It was easier said than done though.

She tried the couch first, but it was a doomed attempt, so she just dragged the blanket to the floor. The untreated slab under the thin layer of vinyl flooring was cold and there were dust balls under the couch. The worn, handmade rug had a vague musty smell.

She closed her eyes and let her magic wander, but it only made the headache worse, so she dropped it and let the vision fold in on itself. Then she lay with her eyes open. The light of the single bulb that lit up the backyard filtered through the bushes and imprinted the pattern of branches on the ceiling. The wall clock ticked the seconds away with an unwavering surety.

She spent a lot of her lifetime alone, either in metaphorical or in literal sense of the word. There were assignments that prevented her from seeing a friendly face for weeks or even months on end. And, even if she wasn’t away, she didn’t have many friends, and the ones who were there – like Clint – tended to disappear for extended periods of time. Even forever, often without a word and the trust they shared was always conditional, because that’s how things just were in her field.

She was used to it, in a way. Yet she never felt as truly, as utterly alone as she did now.

The shadowy branches on the ceiling swayed softly with the autumn breeze and she wrapped the thin blanket closely around herself.

She thought it would get better once she got Loki back to Earth, that it would go smoothly from there. That sending him back would solve his problems and that the sacrifice would end hers, in a more permanent manner.

 _The cycle ends here,_ Loki has said.

Only it did not. He preferred death to more captivity, and she was the one to put him through it again. And every passing day meant another tally mark on Loki’s wall of torment, another stroke to add to the collection of thousands of similar ones from his past. If he hated her right now, he had all the reasons to do so.

Tears came stinging in her eyes and she bit her lip to keep them in. It was not the time to despair, bawling her eyes out wouldn’t help. She had to get a grip of herself.

If only there was someone she could talk to, someone who would understand…

She got up, pulled the clock off the wall and tossed the battery into the trash. Then she reached for her phone, settled on the floor with her back against the couch, opened the camera app. Her face looked gaunt and pale in the spare light the screen gave off. She hit the “record” button.

“Hey,” she said into the eye of the camera and smiled. “I really need to talk to you. So… I’m recording it with an honest intent to play it to you once we meet again. I may change my mind tomorrow, but as of now… Yeah, that’s what we are at.

“I wish you were here… Okay, that’s cliché and not truly accurate. I don’ t mean _here_ exactly, as _here_ is actually a dingy basement in Ohio, which is, by all Earth standards, nowhere near the top one hundred desirable places to be, no matter what measures you apply. At least _I_ can leave, so I guess it beats your current accommodation by that merit alone.

“So, let me rephrase. I really wish you were _with me_.”

Her voice broke and she paused the recording to clear her throat. She stared at her own image on the screen for a long moment before she pushed the button again.

“I know you told me, and I wish I listened. I thought that I…”

Her voice grew frilly again and she reached to pause the video again, then reconsidered. What was the point if she was going to hide things? She blinked and a tear rolled down her cheek.

“Look at you, the asshole extraordinaire, making me weep again, just by not being around. That’s some next level assholery, must be.”

She sighed and smiled at the camera.

“I lied just now. Not the asshole part, that one is true. The ‘I wished I listened to you’ part is a lie. Well, a small bit of me does wish that, because I know you’ve been through enough. But all the rest is happy that you’re still alive…

“Listen. I know it sucks and I know it doesn’t amount to much but – since you’re not here to glare at me with reproach – I’m still going to say it. I’m so fucking sorry I landed you in this position. You don’t deserve anything of what’s happening to you, I hope you know that. And I’m going to turn every stone, burn every bridge and cross every fucking river it takes to get you out. And all the other fancy idioms I can’t think of right now.

“You see, I was never good with words if I had to speak the truth. Maybe if I were, I would’ve found proper ones to tell you how…“

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

“I’ve been exploring the _thing_ a bit more. I still can’t make the light appear, but at least I can sense electricity and water in the pipes and I’m sure there’s some obscure application for that. Perhaps it’s even something absurdly obvious. If that’s the case you’re allowed to laugh at me all you want for not realizing it on my own. Some conditions may apply though.”

She smiled again and looked into the eye of the camera for a long while.

“I’ve met a couple of girls at the bar when I was trying to find a way into the place you were kept in at the beginning… Oh, by the way, I don’t know how much they’ve told you, but I didn’t come to see you right away because I was in a coma up until very recently. Yeah, now you’re permitted to sneer and make a nasty comment about frail mortal bodies. Just one though, so pick the best one you’ve got.

“I know you’re not there anymore, but that’s all I got for now.

“The big bad boss wouldn’t talk to me, because he smells some higher-level conspiracy brewing and who the fuck knows if he isn’t right on point. I don’t want to say much more as I’m recording this on a Starkphone of all things. I scanned it and it seems fine, but I could’ve missed something, and I don’t know what keywords can trigger their search algorithms… You were right about the mythological creature thing doing well for itself. I still didn’t get to the bottom of that, so if they are the ones that are keeping you right now, feel free to bash some faces in, you’d be doing the society a huge favor.”

She chuckled at the mental image.

“Anyway, as I was saying, I met those girls. You’d absolutely hate how thoughtlessly and obnoxiously they act, and you’d probably be right. But then they talked, and I listened, and I realized…

“Remember what I told you? About wanting a normal life? Oh, why am I even asking, of course you do. You told me I make you feel ‘normal’ too. We talked about it like it was some state that was worth achieving, something to work towards to. The thing is… being ‘normal’ does not shield you from loss or grief or pain. Losing a loved one hurts as much and betrayal tastes as bitter, no matter if you’re a provincial girl or a top tier spy or a wizard from a floating castle and there’s just about as much you can do about it. It doesn’t make your life simpler. Or any more or less valuable.

“Then it made me think. What measure do we use to say what’s normal and what’s not? Is there a precise definition? Is there a quantifiable, predefined value that makes up the border line between the ‘normal’ and ‘abnormal’? The girls were normal people, right? At which point would they stop being that? Pink hair? Extra thumbs? Knowing how to yodel? No? Knife throwing skills and some experience with garotte? How about blue skin?

“We hook up to those details that make us stand out, like if they should define us, define what we can and cannot be. As if there was no choice involved, as if it weren’t for us to decide what we really want to do…

“I strived to be something special all of my life. To be something greater, something more significant that would leave an imprint in the world, make it a… I would love to say a better place, but it wasn’t that, not always. Just… different. But no matter what I did there was always someone who would suffer for my actions. Sometimes it was me but often it were other people. This time it’s you. I wanted to help, to be the savior you needed, and it only made things worse. And you? You were told what you should and shouldn’t be all your life. By your father, by your brother, by the people of your home. You tried to make right to those expectations and it only led to a disaster.

“We did what we did, and it just made us crave that normalcy all the more. Both those pursuits, for normalcy and greatness, despite having two opposite directions, lead to the same disappointment. What’s the point then? Why even do that? What if we just try to be… ourselves?

“So, I thought – if you’re still not angry enough to never talk to me again once this is over – can we try being ourselves, together?”

She stopped the recording. A prompt popped up, asking her whether to delete the video or save it. She stared at the notice for a solid minute before she clicked on “save”.

\---

They unhooked the machine and Loki’s thoughts slowly returned to his head and rearranged into – rather unusual, lately – more-or-less lucid state. They wanted something else than the use of his flesh today then. Perhaps that meant he would be spared the cold treatment for a while?

Whether that was true or not, he couldn’t find the enthusiasm to rejoice at the notion. Whatever they came up with instead was going to be just as bad, if not worse. That much he learned already.

It’s been some time since his captors figured out Loki reacted to extreme temperatures in a different way than a mortal would. They’ve been using it ever since, either for their enjoinment or to further their scientific research. Loki wasn’t interested enough to find out which one it was. It hurt the same either way and, regardless of the excuse they used, he knew that they did it because they _could_. Because there was no one who would say no. There were no laws to protect the likes of him and he couldn’t protect himself anymore.

The reason shouldn’t matter, the outcome didn’t change because of it, yet the realization still managed to make it worse, somehow. Perhaps it made him understand that there was nothing that would make them _stop_ , for his fate was sealed the moment he was born. Or perhaps because it made the quiet whisper – the one that repeated “you deserve it” at the back of his mind like a mantra, the one that worked to soothe him at the darkest moments when there was nothing else – no longer effective.

It wasn’t about justice, not at all.

They started with heat, the temperature in the room ramping up until it felt like his skin was sizzling and his flesh would come cleanly off the bones if he moved just a thumb. He almost cried out in relief when they finally switched off the heat and went the other way around.

The solace was short-lived.

He always had a higher tolerance for cold. Higher than any mortal, higher than most Æsir and other elder races, too. He rarely questioned it, he didn’t have many other strong points and it was still better than nothing, as insignificant as it was compared to Thor’s innate powers. Finding out what he was and the realization that what he thought a talent was just a side effect of Odin’s magic made him hate that part of himself too. Still, he was sensible enough to realize it had its uses, whether he liked it or not.

But, as it turned out, it wasn’t without its limits. While the Jötnar in their natural form could thrive in temperatures close to absolute zero, his own ability in that area was limited by the enchantment that changed his appearance. And – once the cell got cold enough – his body responded with an attempt to change into its Jötunn form as an instinctual way to protect itself. He couldn’t control it, but it was still a transformation that required energy and an access to his core. That, of course, made Odin’s spell flare up immediately, and – because it apparently counted as an attempt to use his powers, despite no conscious effort involved – the effects were a lot more violent than they were when his captors merely managed to tear screams out of him.

Who would have thought?

Well, Odin probably did.

Loki wondered briefly if the All-Father had Heimdall relay every piece of torment his used-to-be-son went through, was the abridged summary enough to make him satisfied with mortals’ handiwork or if he not cared enough to look his way at all. Then he immediately forgot about it, as the spell activated again, and a new wave of agony wiped his mind clean of any articulate thought.

They soon found a perfect spot, at which he was left shivering uncontrollably with the spell triggering once in a while, for shorter periods, the effects not severe enough to knock him out but still strong enough to keep him in constant pain. So, as much as he never considered cold his enemy, he grew to hate it all the same.

They left it at that for what felt like ages now, only turning the cooling off when someone came into the cell to draw his blood or replace the containers feeding the machine. They had to alter the formula, because the old one kept on freezing, of which Loki was informed by a very discontented lab worker, who decided to vent his frustration with the fact by pressing a shock baton to Loki’s chin and firing it until it ran out of charge.

Oh, yes, he hated those too.

The cooling was off now and must’ve been for quite some time because the air felt uncomfortably hot in comparison and feeling slowly returned to his extremities, reminding him of the ache of broken bones in his arms. They were broken so his captors could see how fast he would heal, at least that what he caught from their conversations. They intended to repeat the process once he healed and were annoyed that it took so long.

It would be quicker if they didn’t keep on burning the little energy he had on the struggle with Odin’s spell. Obviously, Loki wouldn’t tell them that, even if he somehow could. Well, perhaps he would, if they promised to use something a bit less primitive than a hammer the next time…

The blindfold was ripped off his eyes. The lamp above his head burned too brightly, but he kept his eyes open. It was, too, a rare occurrence and he didn’t want to waste a moment of it. They kept him in the dark for so long he sometimes forgot how light looked like. Not now, but sometimes.

Despite his best efforts, the stinging became unbearable and his eyes filled with tears, so he let his eyelids fall. Then there was a hand in his hair and his head was yanked up, until his throat was crushed against the metal band, cutting away the little air he was normally allowed.

“Look at me when I talk to you,” the owner of the hand snarled and shook Loki’s head to the sides. Oh, yes, someone was talking. To him. That did happen, on occasion.

Loki looked.

The round face and the shape of a clean-shaved skull of the man standing above him seemed vaguely familiar, but he couldn’t recall whether it was someone he knew from here or someone he met in his previous life, the one that didn’t consist entirely of darkness and pain. Sometimes he wasn’t even sure if it was not a dream, something he manufactured in his confused brain to cheer himself up when his existence became too dreadful. There were people who cared for him in the memories of that long-gone time, so it couldn’t be real, could it?

Sometimes he could even remember their faces.

Not now, but sometimes.

“Are you going to play nicely today?” the mortal asked.

As if his cooperation or lack thereof made any difference. Loki wanted to laugh, but the manacle crushed his windpipe too effectively for that to work. He shook his head instead and clenched his teeth in anticipation of the punch that was sure to follow.

Mortal’s lips curled back from his teeth and into a nasty smile. “You might not know it yet, but you will,” he said and produced a wide blade with a long hilt. There was a shining gem mounted in the middle of it.

Loki stared at it for a couple of heartbeats through widening eyes.

The scepter.

The mortal let go of Loki’s hair. His head rolled back, the back side of the gag hit the metal tabletop and the resulting clank rang in his skull.

They had Thanos’ scepter. They would use it on him, taking away the very last thing he still had. His sense of self.

A soft whimper escaped his throat and the mortal laughed. His colleagues accompanied him soon after, making Loki aware of other people in the room. So, they all came to witness his ultimate defeat. Take turns at controlling him, perhaps.

“You still have some wit about you then,” the man said. “Good, you will feel every inch of it, as it happens.”

At that, he pushed the tip of the scepter to Loki’s sternum, with enough force to pierce the layer of cloth and the skin underneath. Loki ignored the pain, knowing the worst was yet to come. The mortal’s fingers curled around the hilt with redoubled effort, the pointy end dug deeper into his flesh and the stone sparked to life, glowing ominously. Loki couldn’t bear looking at it no more and he squeezed his eyes shut.

Perhaps it was for the best. There would be no more pain. They would have no reason to torment him once they believed him on their side.

No, there was something off about that reasoning.

They weren’t punishing him for what he did. They hurt him because of what he _was._ That couldn’t be changed, no matter how much he wished it could.

It wouldn’t be any different, whether his mind was his own or not.

He clenched his fists and waited for the wave of blue light that would come to erase him.

The metal shifted in his throat. Hot agony burst at the base of his skull and spilled all over his body. Loki’s eyes snapped open in an instant.

Then he started laughing.

Odin’s spell. The magic the All-Father constructed was scrutinous enough to block even the Mind Stone’s power. Odin hated him as much.

The spell kept on firing, but he did not stop laughing. He didn’t stop even when the mortals turned on the current in the shackles to subdue him. He only stopped when he could no longer swallow the blood that pooled in his throat and his laughter turned into a coughing fit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's officially the last chapter I have fully edited and ready to post. 
> 
> Than you to everyone who <3 and commented, especially to my apparently first (and, as far as I know, only) fan @LokiAllonsy (how the hell do I tag people here?). It means a lot because - to quote Tyler Joseph - I'm insecure and I care what people think.


	36. Eggshells

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which a relatively minor lapse of judgement leads to a disaster.

“How’s the job hunting?” asked Kate. “Any luck?”

Natasha was at the bar again and so were Kate, Taylor, and another girl she hasn’t met before, the sisters’ cousin from two towns over. The name was Grace.

Burgundy and two other soldiers she did not recognize were hanging at the pool table. Marcus was not there.

“No, not yet.”

“I saw an ad at the florist today. They have it on the front door. Maybe you could check there?” Taylor supplied and Natasha smiled.

“I will, thanks.”

It would be a good suggestion if she was really looking for a job. The small shop by the main avenue was perfect for hiding in plain sight and she took note of the add the first time she passed it while walking on the street. It closed early, was a small business that required only one person to operate at a time, so the hours would be split between the owner and the single employee. It wasn’t the kind of venue with many customers besides regulars, so the risk of bumping into any POIs would be minimal. And no one would question why she only took two shifts a week, because no one would know. It wasn’t worth the hassle though.

The pay was probably shit, too. And it’s not like she could use the “KGB spy”, “freelance assassin”, “SHIELD field agent” and “Tony Stark’s personal assistant” bullet points to spice up her resume.

“A florist? What are you going to do, flower arrangements? Doesn’t that require a fancy school or something?” asked Kate.

Taylor rolled her eyes. “It’s not a pharmacy, dumbo. You don’t have to go to college for that.”

“It doesn’t sound that hard,” Natasha said with a shrug.

“It sounds boring as hell,” Kate decided. “All day surrounded with nothing but dead plants.”

“You work at Walmart, Kate,” Grace chipped in. It was the first full sentence Natasha heard her say.

“It’s anything _but_ boring. I should get a psychology diploma just for the freaks I have to deal with every day. I wouldn’t trade it for your bookshop in a million years,” Kate said, and Grace scoffed.

“A job is a job,” Natasha interjected. “If it earns money, the rest is hardly relevant.”

“Cheers to that!” Taylor exclaimed and raised her glass. “I bet it beats working your ass off in a warehouse anyway.”

Natasha nodded and drank a sip of her coke. “Is it always so slow here on Sundays?”

“Yeah, most of the time. Keep the lord’s day holy and so on.”

“Any chance on some… uhm, company from the base?”

“What, thirsty already?” Taylor teased. “I thought you didn’t hit it off with Tick.”

Natasha shrugged. “Bored, more like. And no, I didn’t, but I like to finish what I started.”

“I can respect that,” Taylor said, and the rest laughed. “Not today though. I don’t think I’ve ever seen any of them here on Sunday.”

“Yeah, they rarely do shopping on weekends either,” Kate agreed. “Some soldiers do, but never the scientists. Or whoever they are.”

Natasha figured that already, the base ran on skeletal crew during the weekends. “How can you tell them apart from regular customers?”

Kate shrugged. “They have this air about them. Like they are more important than everyone else. You sit behind the cash register long enough and you start noticing stuff like that.”

“What are they even doing there?” Taylor pondered. “There’s so many people and they hardly do anything. I don’t think I’ve ever seen more than a single truck going in or out, so it’s not like they are making something, right?”

“They just sit on their assess on a government payroll,” Kate sniggered. “And it all comes from our taxes, baby.”

“Ha, jokes on them, I don’t earn enough to pay any taxes,” Taylor said. “And I’ve heard they are developing some kind of weapon there with the stuff they gathered after New York. Alien tech, space lasers, the like.”

“Space lasers my ass,” Kate retorted. “How would you even know?”

“I have my sources,” Taylor replied with a knowing smirk.

Natasha leaned in closer, rested her chin on her hand and turned to Taylor, radiating the aura of mild interest. “Do tell.”

Taylor made an undecided face, like she was really considering not telling them, but it was clear she was too eager to spill the beans for that to happen. “One of the guys told me.” She lowered her voice into a theatrical whisper. “They’ve captured one of the alien bugs alive and they are keeping it there. Experiments and so on. It has psychic mind powers, it turns out.”

 _Shit._ It was impossible, of course. All the Chitauri dropped dead when Stark blew up the mother base and severed the connection and one could hardly call the link the spawns had to their ship a “psychic power”. More like a leash that killed them once it was broken. But the word of a gossip gets twisted easily…

“And what, they keep it in one of the sheds?”

“No, you idiot, they keep it underground.”

“I call bullshit,” Kate decided. “You shouldn’t trust every piece of crap that spills from guy’s mouth. He was saying shit to appear important to get into your pants.”

“He was already in my pants, so…” Taylor said and winked.

“Did he say what they were doing to it?” asked Natasha.

Taylor hummed and shook her head. “Probably cut it alive, like on those old films from Roswell. To see what it has inside.”

“IPhones…” Kate murmured and rolled her eyes.

“Don’t they have enough of the dead ones already?” said Grace and Natasha had to give her credit for asking the right questions. “And how would a regular soldier know that, you said it yourself, they do nothing but walk around the fence or sit on their asses all day.”

“I dunno. But he was drunk. You can’t lie if you’re drunk. Alcohol blocks that part of your brain.”

If that were true, Natasha’s whole profession would stop existing overnight. She smiled and nodded. “So I’ve heard. I mean, who of us didn’t let one or two secrets slip, right?”

“I need to wear my tinfoil hat the next time I’m out to town then.” Kate said then she turned to Natasha. “Seriously, you believe this shit?”

Natasha shrugged. “I don’t know. Weirder things have happened lately. There were space whales flying over my neighborhood just four months ago, so who can tell what’s real and what’s not anymore?”

“You’ve… seen it? The attack?” Grace asked, her eyes wide.

Natasha nodded curtly.

“How was it? It looked hella scary on TV.”

“I was terrified,” Natasha said. The best lie, they say, is the one that carries a sliver of truth. “Phones didn’t work and the electricity in my building was out, so we couldn’t even get any info from news or radio, so we didn’t know what was going on. I learned about what exactly went down a lot later.”

“You’ve seen any of the aliens?”

 _Well…_ “Just from a distance.”

“And the Avengers?”

“Not during the battle, no. But I’ve seen Iron Man flying by later.”

“Dope!” Taylor exclaimed. “But isn’t that like a common thing if you live in the city?”

“Not really. Tourists can spend whole days sitting at the foot of the tower, waiting for him to fly in or out and they often leave disappointed. But I guess you’re getting used to the thought that it _could_ happen if you live there and it’s not really that exciting anymore.”

“You’re all right and that’s what counts,” Grace said, and it earned her a poke in the ribs from Taylor. “What?”

Kate shot her a scornful glare.

“Seriously, what is it?”

Natasha sighed. “My fiancé died in the attack.”

The genuine terror in Grace’s expression made her regret ever using that part of the story. It worked splendidly for what it was supposed to accomplish, and the old Natasha wouldn’t spare it a single thought, but it felt wrong, now. She didn’t deserve the compassion. She was the one that got away unscathed.

“I… I’m sorry to hear that. Are you all right?”

“Yeah.”

Grace looked at her still with a worry in her gaze, expecting her to say more. Natasha gritted her teeth. There was no way to backtrack now.

“Yeah, I’m fine. I just… There are so many things I wanted to say to him, so many experiences we could’ve shared and now it’s just… all gone. It gets better, but I still find myself picking up the phone or just turning to tell him about something that happened, only to realize that he is not here anymore.”

The words tasted like ash in her mouth.

\---

“I’m thinking about getting the job at the florist. Okay, not really, but say what you will, I’d look _dashing_ in an apron,” Natasha said and pushed the phone away to get a wider angle, put her hand on her hip and flashed a smile at the camera, then slowly allowed it to die down. “I played many parts in my life. I was a waitress, a veterinary assistant, a nurse, a governess, a preschool teacher, and an escort, too many times to count. Everything that was required of me, I became. It shouldn’t be any different, should it?

“I think I’d hate it, actually. It was always the worst part. Getting into the role and then sitting and waiting for things to develop the way you intended, with nothing else to do, with the sense of urgency brewing at the back of your mind. And I know you’re out there, alone, while I sit on my ass, doing nothing.

“I wish I picked some of your skills in the patience area. I’m trying to be; I see how badly things could’ve turned out the last time I acted without thinking and that I have just this one shot at doing it right this time around, but it’s still hard. It feels like I’ve given up…

“I’m trying to work on the _thing_ in the meantime. You were right, the more I do, the more everything feels … I don’t know how to call it. Fresh, new and exciting, yet familiar on some level, too. Like I see and feel things I could always sense, but never registered consciously?

“I tried to expand on the dream-walking a bit. I found a quiet spot by the fountain in the main square, sat there and watched the people pass by on the street. It feels overwhelming, trying to reach out with all those people around, but I try to get used to that feeling, direct it better, be more precise. It’s harder to figure out what to do on my own, without you guiding me, there are so many things I would like to ask you, but for now I’m just experimenting, feeling my way around blindly.

“I heeded your warnings for once and didn’t try establishing any lasting connections, I just… brushed the minds, as they passed. I can’t sense much, but I think I’m able to feel… something. Whispers, emotions, pieces of half-formulated thoughts, feelings. It feels completely different to what we’ve been doing on the glacier, I don’t know if it’s because of how brief the connections are or that people over here are just… constructed in a different way?

“I’m not digging in deeper, because I remember what you told me and I know I’m not ready, but maybe I’m getting there? Maybe, by the time we meet again, I’ll be able to surprise you with my awesome new skills?

“Who am I kidding? I might have gotten the best teacher in the world, but there’s still so much I need to figure out first and there’s only so much I can do on my own. Too bad, I could’ve used some more advanced moves right about now.

“Anyway… If all goes smoothly, I should be able to move on to the next phase by the end of the week. If all goes smoothly, the next time I talk to you will be in person.”

\---

It didn’t go smoothly.

\---

Marcus didn’t set his foot outside the base for the most of next week and Natasha started to doubt her choice of a target. By Thursday the anxiety won, and she spent the afternoon at the observation post, trying for an alternative. By now she knew the agency men rarely left the base and if they did, they did so in groups that were harder to approach. Regular soldiers ventured out on their own more often, but they didn’t have the credentials she needed. That left the civilian personnel, and it posed its own set of problems.

On the surface it seemed easy. Pick someone, follow them home. Go in, ask questions, get out. But she had no inside knowledge or any other intel on employees, so she had no way to tell who had high enough level of clearance and who didn’t. It meant shooting blindly and hoping for the best. And she only had a couple of bullets available, because people do talk and being approached by a young woman one didn’t know under some flippant pretext or another creates a pattern that someone’s ought to catch up to, sooner or later. The last thing she needed now was the base being put on high alert. And that was the optimistic scenario, if someone recognized her… Given where – and with whom – she spent the last months, it wouldn’t take a lot of investigation to figure out what she was after. In that case, even if she managed to slip away without getting caught, it would make finding and getting Loki out more complicated than it already was. And it has proven pretty damn complicated so far.

No, she needed to keep it covert. No one can know.

Even eliminating the target didn’t ensure the secrecy to be upheld, it would buy her a day or two before the absence was noticed and the alarm was set off. Not to mention that – no matter what the actual purpose of the base was – most of the men there were just following orders. It wasn’t her right to call who deserved to live and who deserved to die. Not anymore.

She wasn’t foolish enough to say for sure there would be no killing. Such promises were prone to being broken the moment shit went down. But there would be no killing if she could avoid it.

A car approached the western gate, followed by two more. It was almost six and the night shift was arriving.

She pulled up the binoculars, set them to the maximum magnification and aimed her scrutiny at the main entrance.

There was a certain set of characteristics she was looking for. It was by no means a guarantee of success, but it was nonetheless a way to thin out the herd somewhat. Her eyes slipped over the people leaving the building, until she found what she was looking for.

The man was one of the last leaving the facility and was older than most of his colleagues, wore a well-fitting jacked, expensive shoes and a wristwatch that gleamed in the sunlight. He aimed his stride at the back of the parking lot and entered a sky-blue, mid-range Audi of a relatively modern make.

Natasha picked up her equipment and headed for the car.

\---

She followed the blue Audi until it pulled over onto a driveway leading to a two-story colonial style house in Monroeville. She stopped on the opposite side of the road, behind a semi parked two houses away and watched as the man left the car and headed inside, closing the side entrance door behind himself.

Then she waited.

\---

The darkness has fallen, and she made her move. It was still early, and the lights were on in what she assumed was the living area – two big windows and French door leading to the patio in the front of the house – but that only meant she would be that harder to spot while she peeked inside.

She changed into long, dark pants and threw on a hoodie, then pulled the hood up.

The lamp above the side door was off, but it looked like it could be motion activated, so she circled around the area to avoid it. She stepped onto first of the wooden stairs leading up to the porch and the boards creaked under her weight.

A loud barking came from inside of the house and the curtains moved. She dropped into a low crouch and dove into the bushes on the other side of the banister.

The door opened and a small, furry dog leapt out, one of those tiny, loud lap-warming breeds people considered fancy. It ran onto the porch, down the stairs and right into the brushes Natasha was using as a hiding spot. It barked again and nudged her leg with its nose. Natasha cautiously patted it on its head. “Go away,” she mouthed. The dog barked again. She scratched it behind its ear. “I don’t even like dogs.” She was always a cat person. Cats were nature’s best spies. Dogs were incessant noise machines.

“Toto!” a female voice yelled from the door. “Come here!”

“Go to your mistress, you noisy, annoying creature,” Natasha whispered, and Toto wagged its tail and licked her hand.

“Toto!”

The dog finally reacted, gave her fingers the last parting lick and ran back to the house. The door closed and the rectangle of light on the pathway disappeared.

Natasha sighted then closed her eyes and reached for her core. She should’ve done it earlier, she realized; she wouldn’t get surprised like that if she did, but using magic was still not a part of her instincts. Not only because it was mostly useless so far, but also because it was fucking magic and, no matter how she twisted and turned the fact that she could do that now in her head, it still felt weird. Good, but weird.

She started with charting the area around herself then directed her attention further and further into the house, ignoring the power buzzing in the walls, the vibrations in the air from the sound blazing from the tv set and the small fuzzy ball of life energy by the door, which couldn’t be anything else but Toto. There were two signatures in the living room and two further in the back, a bit less pronounced. Or perhaps just smaller? Kids maybe?

She reached further and higher but could sense no one on the upper floor. So, four people and a dog. Should be doable.

She circled the house, keeping close to the walls. There were a few potential routes of entry. The front door was too exposed, she would be too easy to spot there in the faint light that reached the porch from the streetlamps, but there were others. The side entrance was an obvious one, but the motion sensor was an issue. Luckily, she soon found a different way in – a small basement window, cracked open, perhaps for ventilation. She pulled out her phone and shone a light inside. There was some open space to land on, so she’d be able to get in without making too much noise.

It would be almost too easy if not for the goddamned dog. It didn’t seem aggressive, but who can tell how it would react once she got inside the house? Too bad she didn’t bring tranquillizing darts, there were a couple of those in the equipment she took from New York, but she left most of it back at her place, it was safer to store there than in the trunk of the car since the lock on it didn’t even work anymore and one solid kick was enough to open it.

Well, she could always wring its neck, if it became an issue. I wasn’t anything she didn’t do before, was it?

\---

It was well past eleven when the lights in the upstairs bedroom finally went off. She waited another fifteen minutes, then pulled the hood back up and – after a momentary consideration – grabbed a black scarf from the glove box and wrapped it around her lower face. She didn’t see any cameras on the outside, but it was a middle-class house, and it was more and more common for those to have some sort of surveillance. The equipment got more inconspicuous and easily available in the last couple of years. Covering her face would at least make her a lot harder to recognize if she got caught on camera without noticing.

Yeah, there were sides of progress she didn’t really like.

The basement window was still open, just like she expected it would. She wiggled her hand inside and felt for the latch, then pushed it open and slid inside.

She pulled out a small flashlight, the same exact make and model she had with her on the island. It was a standard issue, so it’s not like she had many to choose from. Holding it in her hand still reminded her of the time she used it previously. It was not a pleasant memory.

She shook her head and surveyed her surroundings. The cellar was small, and the beams hung so low she would have to bow her head if she were even an inch taller. Stacks of boxes lined one wall, while a discarded pile of used building materials took rest of the space: buckets of half-dried paint, opened rolls of wallpaper, a metal ladder with one step missing. Whoever lived here was not a fan of throwing stuff away.

There was only one door on the other side of the room. She stopped with her hand on the handle and closed her eyes, scouting ahead.

The inhabitants were all upstairs – two adults in one corner, the kids in their bedrooms on the other side of the house. Fortunately, the dog’s signature sat lodged between the two adults upstairs. She would have the full reign of the lower level as long as she was careful.

There were stairs on the other side of the door. She aimed the beam at the floor and climbed, staying close to one side. The wooden frame whined and buckled under her weight slightly. There was another door at the end and, again, she stopped and sensed her surroundings, then, after determining the situation hasn’t deteriorated, she pushed it open.

The door led to a wide hallway, with two archways leading to the kitchen on one side and the living room on the other and stairs going to the upper floor ahead.

She headed for the mudroom first, checking the pocket of the jacket the man was wearing, but found only car keys and some crumpled papers there. She studied the contents, but it was just a list of groceries and cinema tickets from a week ago. _Beverly Hills Chihuahua 3, really?_

She went through the house meticulously, checking every obvious place people usually left the items they used every day. The side table in the hallway, the kitchen and bathroom counters, the living room coffee table.

The double door in the living room led to the study. She swept the light beam over the rows of books on the shelves. Most of the titles pertained to branches of physics, with lots of “particle” and “energy” subjects, some more fancy words too. A personal library like that was a good place if someone wanted to hide documents or photos, but nothing seemed evidently out of place, the thin layer of dust was even and undisturbed and she didn’t have an entire night to go on a – most likely fruitless – search, so she just turned around and turned her scrutiny to the desk.

The top drawer was locked but it was so easy to open it was almost insulting. There was a gun there, on top of a pile of papers. At least the man of the house didn’t sleep with it under his pillow, that was a good sign.

She put it aside and went through the papers. Mortgage documents for John and Susan DeWitt, car insurance, last year tax form with a six figure on it, a hospital bill for an ulcer removal. At the bottom of the pile there was a planner and she skimmed it. There wasn’t much in it, some dates were completely empty, some had a single note with an hour and an email address or a phone number – perhaps planned calls and meetings, but without any names. She skipped to the end of August and went through the days Loki was kept in the facility. Nothing stood out of the ordinary to her, until she got to the sixth of September.

There was a single phrase there. “Second attempt”, written with capital letters with a red pen, then underlined a couple of times.

Second attempt at what? What were they doing?

She skipped a few days, and surely, there was another entry, on the fourteenth. “Third attempt,” it read, but that one was struck out.

She stared at the page.

It might be a coincidence, but it matched the rough timeline Fury provided too well to disregard. That would mean that Mr. John DeWitt was, in fact, taking part in torturing Loki in the name of science.

She gritted her teeth, closed the planner, and replaced it in the drawer, along with the rest of its contents.

There was a laptop in front of her and she opened it up. It was protected with a password, but it was just an operating system setting and running it in safe mode solved the issue. She went through emails, but there was no work email set up, just a private one and a quick peek at the gallery and internet history revealed it was mostly used by the wife and kids. So, either John had a second computer somewhere or wasn’t bringing his work home.

She sighted and went upstairs.

There was nothing in the bathroom, nor on the table in the hallway. The door to the main bedroom was closed with the inhabitants still soundly asleep behind. She turned the handle and pushed it forth, then stopped, listening.

There was a whine and then patter of small feet on the floor. She took a step back into the hallway.

 _Fucking dogs._

Toto trudged up to the door and stopped. The fur on its back bristled and it bared its teeth in a growl.

“Shh, you liked me well enough before, you dumb creature,” she hissed and reached to pat its head. The dog growled again. “I don’t want to kill you.”

_This is ridiculous._

Another growl sounded, growing in intensity, threating to turn into a bark. She lunged and grabbed the dog by the nape of its neck, narrowly avoiding the teeth snapping at her hand.

She held the animal down as it squirmed to get away, its frail, fluffy throat under her fingertips thrumming with muffled whines. Her fingers closed around the tiny windpipe, ready to crush it, waiting for a command to follow the call for blood singing in her veins.

She hesitated. The warm body under her hands was brimming with fuzzy energy, the small spark of awareness inside its head reeling in confusion, terrified and hurt. It shone like a miniature star, just within her grasp.

She reached for it. It didn’t fight her.

The world folded away around her.

_Pain. Stop. Hurt._

_Pain._

_Enemy._

_Run._

_Must protect._

_Fight._

_Pain._

She stumbled and the dog wriggled its way from her grasp. The connection severed and Toto ran away and down the hallway, whimpering.

She scuttled away until the wall behind stopped her, then she collapsed and curled into a fetal position. Her limbs were shaking, and her heart fluttered wildly in her chest.

The echoes of _Pain_ and _Stop_ and _Enemy_ rattled in her brain, pushing her own thoughts away, robbing the world of a couple dimensions until only the barest of concepts remained. It was easy to drown in that, forgot herself.

It took all her will to make herself breathe again. She slowly unfurled her limbs and opened her eyes.

The light was on.

She looked up.

There was a girl standing above her. She was wearing a pink sleeping gown and couldn’t be older than six or seven.

“Who are you?” the girl asked and crooked her head.

Natasha cursed. Then she ran.

The voice of the girl calling for her parents and then the sound of footsteps chased her. The front door was locked, and she fumbled with the latch as the steps pattered away down the stairs. She burst out to the street, stumbled down the patio stairs and ran across the lawn.

She almost reached the pavement when a warning shot was fired, and someone shouted.

John wasted no time on retrieving the gun. She should’ve taken the clip out, she thought belatedly.

She ran.

Another shot. It hit the asphalt a few yards ahead and to her left. 

Another one. She swerved to her right to avoid it.

A piercing pain exploded in her calf, staggering her. She fell to her knees.

“Put your hands above your head and stay where you are!”

She bit her lip and got up.

“Stay down!”

She ran.

Another shot. The porch light in the house across the street came on.

She crossed the road and got to the car, then yanked at the driver’s door handle. It jammed, like it always did. A bullet hit the window and it cracked in a spider’s web pattern. She punched it all the way in, pulled on the handle inside and opened the door. There was a metallic clank as another bullet hit the hood of the car.

The keys were still in the ignition, where she left them. The engine coughed once, twice, thrice, then burred to life. She stepped on the gas. Her injured leg was uncooperative and heavy. Wheels spun in place and the stench of burned rubber joined the tang of gunpowder.

There was another shot, louder this time, and the windshield shattered. Higher caliber, that one.

She lifted her foot of the pedal a bit and the car moved. Side mirror scratched the parked semi as she veered around it, then broke off. She cursed. She should’ve parked in reverse.

A man with a hunting riffle was standing in the middle of the street, blocking her route. She bent forward and floored the accelerator. Another bullet flew above her head.

There was no impact and – when she looked in the rear mirror – she saw the riffle guy getting up from the sidewalk, where he must have thrown himself to avoid getting rammed. John DeWitt was still on his lawn, still aiming his gun at her, but – if her calculations were right – he should be out already.

There was a flash and a bullet hit the rear light.

Well, now he was out.

She reached an intersection and turned right, then left on the next one. There were sirens coming from the South, so she headed North.

\---

She stopped a couple miles outside of town in a patch of woods, just past a bridge crossing a narrow, lazy river. She pulled onto the side of the road, turned the engine down and slumped, resting her forehead against the steering wheel.

Blood was running down her leg and there was enough of it to slush around in her boot when she wiggled her toes. She was starting to feel a little lightheaded too. She should do something about it.

She hit the steering wheel in frustration.

Why was it all so hard? Why can’t _something_ go according to plan?

She acted rashly again, didn’t she? She promised herself to be patient, to do it right, then fucked it all up again on the first occasion she got, and in such an idiotic way, too. Loki has warned her, explicitly, against the very exact thing she just did.

There was no backup this time, no handy unit standing at the ready to pull her out of trouble. No air support, no inside intel, no satellite surveillance, no state-of-the-art gear, no droves of genius analysts working behind the scenes. Not even Clint to have her back when everything else fails. She was alone in this. Just her against the colossus of SHIELD and Council forces, with Loki’s freedom on the line.

She took a couple of deep breaths and inspected the wound. It looked better than it felt, at least what she could see under the faint luminescence of the dome light. The bullet went through the flesh of her calf all the way. It bled and hurt like a bitch, but at least it missed the bone. The Glock John DeWitt was using didn’t have enough chamber pressure for the projectile to shatter the bone and still come out cleanly on the other side at that distance.

She had no first-aid kit on her (seriously, what was she thinking, going in unprepared as she was?), but miraculously, the car came equipped with a travel emergency bag. She fished a packet of gauze and a piece of bandage out of it. The half-used bottle of hydrogen peroxide had an expiration date of over a decade prior, so she tossed it away, then proceeded to wrap the wound.

The thought to try healing it with magic did cross her head, but she discarded it quickly. She couldn’t be sure how much energy it would require and falling into a coma on the side of the road in a car that was just seen on a crime scene, while cops – and who knows who else at this point – was on her tail was not the best course of action. Besides, she had enough magical fuckups for the day.

\---

The car rolled down the bank and slowly sunk to the bottom of the creek. The river wasn’t very deep, but the water was murky and looked high enough to cover the roof, and she drove far enough from the main road for it not to get spotted immediately. She was reluctant to do it, but there was no other way. Even if none of the witnesses took a note of the license plates (why didn’t she just steal some beforehand?), the bullet holes alone were enough of a tell.

She sighted, pulled the hood back up, slung her bag over her shoulder and headed back to town. It was going to be a long hike.

\---

When the alarm sounded at six, it cost her a lot to not throw the phone at the wall. What should be an hour-long walk, took twice that. Not only her leg hurt like hell, but she also had to keep clear off the road each time a car passed her on. As much as she would wish to hitch her ride back, she couldn’t afford someone remembering her. It was a small community, the news carried quickly and the chance someone would put two to two was too high to ignore. So, she walked, and every step reminded her of her own stupidity. It was a wee hour of the morning when she collapsed into a restless sleep.

She should’ve waited. She could’ve tapped the landline, set up a camera, came back with some useful equipment. A gun, too. But no, what did she do instead? She went in without having an actual mean of dealing with what she might encounter, without knowing what she was looking for, without a plan of escape. It was a miracle she was even alive, if the guy was trying to kill her and not just stop her, she might just as well be dead right now. Running from bullets in a straight line, too?

Her misstep meant the time for waiting was over. It was almost certain the car would be identified, even if none of the witnesses remembered the plates it was obvious they were local. The side mirror left on the scene would make pinpointing the make and year of the car inevitable and it will lead the police to the previous owner, sooner or later. She signed the sales deal with a fake name and of course never registered it, but the woman would remember her enough to provide a description.

And, even if that didn’t put them on her scent, there was her blood on the scene. The analysis will take a couple of days and the query will bounce off the SHIELD’s database, as all the biodata of agents was classified, but it will set a red flag, placing her at the scene and it wasn’t something she would be able to squirm away from scot-free. She was on a sick leave, there’s no excuse for her to pop up where she did, and the place was still close enough to Norwalk for Fury to make the connection the moment the report reaches his desk. Depending on how fast the local police worked, it gave her a fortnight before she needed to disappear and the bridge connecting her to SHIELD was burned. At best.

_Fuck._

And, if that wasn’t enough to effectively ruin her mood, she now had to find another car.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The "iphones" line is a very much an inside joke that I couldn't help myself but put there, but now it doesn't make any sense, so let me explain.
> 
> Imagine a hypothetical situation: fifteen years ago, the middle of the summer, three friends watch the TV series Firefly, baked out of their (hypothetical) minds on home-grown pot. The "Bushwhacked" episode comes in, the scene where Simon is tending to the mad survivor of the Reavers raid in the infirmary. The survivor grabs his wrist and says: "Open up. See what's inside." To which one of the (hypothetical) friends says, solemnly, "Iphones..."
> 
> I think we... I mean the hypothetical group of three friends lost it for a good half of an hour after that.
> 
> And now it's an outside joke as well.


	37. Pivot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What has been seen cannot be unseen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is a sex scene with a complicated consent in this chapter. It's not non-con per se, but it's still... well, complicated. You've been warned.

She considered just straightforward stealing herself a new ride, but it wasn’t feasible in the long run. Again, too risky, she made enough mess as-is and having another crime that could be linked to her wasn’t anywhere on the list of things to wish for right now. Plus, she needed to stick around for a day or two longer and having someone recognize the car would be disastrous.

It was what the old Natasha would do, the one who didn’t care about the consequences of her own actions, the one who went in, took what she needed, did her job and let someone else deal with the fallout. SHIELD would purge the records whenever needed and settle the damages where it was required.

She needed to shake off that old mindset. There would be no safe place waiting for them once this was over. No, they would be fugitives and she needed to get used to keeping low profile and drawing as little attention as possible.

She did _just peachy_ so far.

There were just a couple of cars available locally that weren’t sold by a dealership and that left too much of a paper trail. She finally settled on a ten-year-old Kia Carnival. She called the number, but it went to voicemail after a few signals. She messaged the seller and – after some back and forth – he agreed to meet her “after school” in front of the department store.

She redressed the wound, pulled on her boots, popped two tramadols and went to town to grab something to eat.

\---

The left side of the vehicle had a deep scratch that ran across both doors and the rear fender. The angle was conveniently missing from the photos in the ad. The seller was a high schooler, dressed in brand clothes and with a smug grin on his face, so she haggled until she got five hundred off the asking price.

The car came equipped with an animal print seat cover on the back couch, a set if plush truck balls hanging from the rearview mirror and it absolutely reeked of pot and cigarette smoke. There was Kid Rock CD in the player. Natasha got halfway through the first song before she lost her nerve and threw it outside the window.

\---

She went to the bar in the evening. Marcus was there last Friday, if he were to come, it would be today.

The guys from the base weren’t there when she arrived, there was only a couple of cars on the parking lot and the jeeps they used would be hard to miss. She parked in her usual spot and went inside.

Chloe spotted her the moment she crossed the threshold and waved at her with a smile and Natasha found herself smiling back. She grew to… Well, maybe not like, but definitely to tolerate the girls for some reason. She wasn’t even sure why. She could have a kid older than they were, were she still capable of bearing children. They had absolutely nothing in common.

Well, perhaps that _was_ the reason.

“How did the job application go? You got it?”

Natasha shrugged. “I haven’t applied yet. I’m exploring other options.”

“I can ask my aunt to whisper a good word for you,” offered Chloe. “She knows the owner, I think they are in the same church prayer group or something like that.”

“No, thanks,” Natasha said dismissively, then amended. “I mean, thank you for the offer but I’d like to do it myself. It would be a bad look to start with exploiting connections, right?”

Kate scoffed and Taylor laughed, “Oh, come on, it’s not a city council seat, just a shitty clerk job.”

“Still,” Natasha insisted.

“Whatever. Let me know if you change your mind,” Chloe said.

The girls returned to discussing some guy named Tod, who apparently knocked up one of the local girls and fled to another state, while Natasha sipped her drink and watched the entrance through half-closed eyelids.

It was a bit past eight when the door swung open and Burgundy stepped through the threshold and a couple of his friends poured in behind him. Tick closed the procession and the door started to slowly close behind him. The pit in her stomach grew heavier with every inch it travelled.

Then it opened back up and Marcus stepped in.

_Finally._

She turned away before he noticed her stare and reinserted herself into the conversation.

“Oh, Leeann, look who the cat dragged in,” Kate said and pointed her chin at the pool table. “Isn’t that your prince on a white horse?”

Natasha looked up in time just to meet Tick’s eyes. He grinned and waved at her. It would be easier if he weren’t here. Dealing with the consequences of her own meddling was never her strong suit. “I think I changed my mind.”

“Looks like he didn’t. Come on, look at those puppy eyes!”

“That’s the point, I like a little challenge. And I’m not in the mood today.”

Kate laughed. “Well, if you’re not going to consummate, I might,” she teased.

“Go for it,” Natasha said. “I don’t mind.”

Kate smiled at her craftily. “Okay then.” She got up and adjusted her clothes. “Are you coming to say hi?”

“In a moment.”

The girls grabbed their drinks and Natasha stayed in the booth. Disappointment bloomed on Tick’s face the second he realized she is not coming. She ignored his stare and turned her eyes elsewhere.

Marcus was sitting in his usual spot by the defunct arcade machine and his eyes were firmly fixed at Natasha. She treated him to a coy smile and turned away.

She hoped he would be the first to come over. He wasn’t. It was Tick.

He sat across from her.

“Hello,” he said, “what’s up?”

She shrugged. “Not much. What do you want?”

His small smile disappeared, and his eyebrow twitched. “Uhm, I just came over to say hi. I thought that, erm, maybe you’d like to join me? I mean, join us, at the pool table, or something. We can play darts again, I’ve been practicing, I think I have a shot at beating you this time. So, what do you say?” His cheeks were burning red.

“No, thanks. I’m not in the mood,” she said and took another sip of her drink.

“Can I stay here then?” he asked. “We don’t have to… uhm, do anything. I just want to talk.”

“I’d rather not,” she said, her tone hard.

“Oh. Okay then,” he stuttered. She glared, until he got up and wandered away, his shoulders slumped in defeat. Natasha turned back to the door to avoid looking at him.

\---

It was at least another nail-biting hour before Marcus made his move. He came over and stood above her, until she scooted over and made a place for him to sit next to her.

He clapped down on the seat and crossed his arms on his chest, his sizeable pecks flexing, the close-fitting tee shirt leaving little to imagination. He wasn’t looking at her.

“Is that supposed to impress me?” she asked lightly.

He disregarded her comment. “Have you thought about my proposition?” he asked instead.

Natasha propped her head on her elbow and raised an eyebrow. “Your proposition?” she said, toying with the choker on her throat. “And what would that be?”

“I can give you what you want,” he said in a dark tone.

 _I very much doubt it._ “Every guy I meet says that and they rarely deliver. What makes you think you’re so special?”

He turned to her sharply and grabbed her wrist. “I _know_ what you need.” His fingers curled around her hand and she whimpered softly. It wasn’t enough to truly hurt her, but it was awfully close.

She chuckled and pulled her hand free. “You’re not the only one. I bet half of the guys here would do _things_ to me, if I just asked.”

“I don’t see you looking at other guys. Tick was just a diversion to get me to pay attention.”

She laughed again. The direct approach was unusual, she had to admit. “Well, you got me.”

“Come on then,” he said and put his hand on her thigh and squeezed.

She made an affronted face and angled away. “I haven’t said yes yet. You will need more than just _words_ to convince me,” she scoffed, crossing her legs, and folding her hands in her lap.

He studied her, his expression cold and calculating. The look in his eyes made her stomach lurch with revulsion. “Oh, there’s something only _I_ can give you,” he said in the end.

“There is?” she asked coyly and adjusted the metal bracelet on her wrist. “And what do you think it is?”

“Your boyfriend died in New York, right?”

She looked at him with a mixture of disgust and shock. The gossip indeed travelled like wildfire here. “So what?”

He smirked. “I have something that will make you feel a lot better.”

That, she doubted even more. “You do?

He nodded.

“What is it?”

“I’ll show you, if you go with me.”

“You can show me now.”

“No.”

She pulled her lips into a pout and put up a show of consideration. She knew she was going with him, that wasn’t a question, but he couldn’t know that. “Okay,” she said in the end. “Any ideas where we might go?”

“There’s a motel.” He was prepared, it seemed.

“I don’t think I can drive,” she said and raised her glass. She didn’t want to get in the car with him if she could avoid it. He was still physically stronger than her and her skimpy disguise did not allow for concealed weapons. It was unnecessary risk.

“We can walk, it’s not far.”

She chuckled. “Fine. Lead the way.”

He got up and let her out. She turned to the bar. “Where are you going?” he asked, grabbing her forearm.

“I’m too sober for this. I’m getting some provisions for the road.”

He grumbled but let go of her hand.

She pulled a pill from her pocket discreetly. She was _not_ going in unprepared this time. 

\---

“What’s that?”

“Uhm, a beer?”

“I didn’t ask you.”

“So? I got you one anyway. I’m nice like that. It’s called ‘being friendly’, you know?”

He accepted the bottle and held it for a moment, undecided what to do with it, before he finally grunted and took a gulp. “This way,” he said.

They walked without talking and she made a show of submission by walking half a step behind. The transactional nature of the whole situation felt repulsive, but it wasn’t what sent her mind racing. No, it wasn’t her first rodeo, she could get through that. But the thing he wanted to show her… Something to make her _feel better_.

It had to be something connected to Loki, there was no other link between the base and the New York attack. Unless Taylor’s intel was worth anything and they indeed had some of the equipment or one of the Chitauri, but that wouldn’t explain why he thought she would like to see it… No, it had to be Loki.

_Shit._

At least she was going to get her first true piece of information. Whatever happened, has already happened and there was no changing it. Shirking away from it wouldn’t help.

She gritted her teeth. The painkillers’ effect has worn out by now, the wound on her leg was throbbing with every step and Marcus was walking quickly. Oh, he was eager enough. And to think she had doubts he was even interested.

The motel was about a mile away, an establishment like a million others in every corner of the country. She waited by the door as Marcus gulped down the rest of his beer, tossed the bottle into a rose bush and went into the reception hall to rent the room. The clerk gave the man a quick glance then his eyes jumped to Natasha immediately. He shrugged and tapped away at the keyboard, asking about none of their IDs.

She let Marcus lead her into the room. It was cramped, with a double bed talking most of the space and the décor screamed early nineties. That was, coincidentally, probably the last time the room was thoroughly cleaned, too.

He closed the door and turned on the bedside lamp. She just stood there.

“Take off your clothes,” he ordered.

“You were supposed to show me something.”

“I’ll show you later,” he growled and grabbed her waist, pulling her close, then tugged at the hem of her blouse to take it off. “Come on.”

She twisted out of his grasp and pushed him away, then took a step back. “No, we had a deal. Show me now.”

He glowered at her, his hands still in the air, considering. She widened her stance slightly. He shook his head and then pulled out his phone, flipped through it for a moment and handed it to her.

She looked at the screen. Her knees buckled. She sat down on the bed and stared.

The photo left very little to imagination.

After a minute of stunned silence Marcus cleared his throat.

“Who… Who’s that?” she managed finally. He expected a reaction, and this was all she could muster. She didn’t have to fake the thrum in her voice.

“Don’t you recognize him?”

She shook her head.

“That’s the fuck who attacked us! The guy who killed your boyfriend.”

“But… how?”

She flipped to the next photo of the gallery, but it was just some blurred shot of the outside. Marcus wrested the phone from her fingers, then stashed it back into his pocket. “They brought him over a couple weeks ago.”

“Is he still there?”

Marcus shrugged. “Nope.”

“Did he… escape?”

Marcus laughed. “No, they took him somewhere else.”

“Where?”

“I don’t know,” he said and took a step towards her, pulling his tee shirt over his head. “Not my goddamned business,” he added and pushed her back onto the bed.

She swallowed and took a long breath, fighting the wave of nausea, then started unbuttoning her top.

There was still work to be done.

He climbed onto her, grabbed her wrists, and maneuvered them above her head. One hand was pinning her arms to the mattress, the other was fumbling with her pants. She shifted and moaned, then put up a light struggle and an ugly smile bloomed on his face.

He let go and she scrambled further onto the bed and kicked off her shoes. He pulled her pants off then his hand lingered on the bandage around her calf. “What’s that?” he asked and squeezed, forcing a pained yelp out of her.

 _Shit._ “I walked into a rebar,” she said. “No, leave it on, it’s fresh and I don’t want bleed all over the bed,” she pleaded, when he tugged at the edge of the bandage. He stopped but did not take his fingers away. She reached for his pants to distract him.

“No,” he grumbled, swatting her hands away. “Don’t touch me unless I tell you, or I’ll have to hurt you.”

She angled away, batted her eyelashes, and licked her lips. “Will you?”

“In fact,” He paused and tugged on his belt, “I think you’ve earned yourself some schooling already.”

He looked around the room, got off of her, then started undoing the curtain binders.

“Wait,” she gulped, “there are handcuffs in my bag. Use those.” Depending on how proficient the person doing the tying was, getting out of a hand tied knots might he problematic or even bordering impossible. Marcus did not seem like somebody with lots of first-hand experience, but it was still unwise to risk it if she didn’t have to. Handcuffs were easy, even ones that didn’t have hidden release latches.

He smiled knowingly, grabbed her bag and turned it upside down, spilling the contents onto the carpet. Handcuffs clanked out and he picked them then paused, regarding her belongings scattered on the floor. Her heart skipped a beat. There was a magnetic card scanner sitting conspicuously among the items, right smack in the middle of the pile. Marcus might not know the exact purpose of the device, but it was still a curiosity not belonging inside a girl’s bag. Luckily, it was another item that grabbed his attention. He picked up the ball gag and dangled it in front of her face. “You weren’t joking when you said you’re a naughty girl.”

Natasha smiled sheepishly, stretched her hands above her head again, and arched her spine invitingly. Yep, the visit in a sex shop this morning was definitely a good call.

“On your belly,” he commanded, then, when she wasn’t quick enough to react, bodily grabbed her by her sides and turned her over. She protested weakly and wiggled her hips. He twisted his fingers into her hair and pulled, then pushed the ball of the gag to her lips. “Open up,” he ordered. She grunted in a token protest but obeyed, biting down on the ball as he fastened the strap behind her head, so tightly it bit into the corners of her mouth. He twisted her arms up and locked the cuffs, looping the chain around one of the rails that created the headboard. She moaned into the pillow. His breathing quickened into a pant and his hands gipped her shoulders, then slid down to her sides and over her bottom and tights. Then he pulled away abruptly.

The first stroke came unexpected and landed on her bare ass and there was nothing fake about the cry that tore from her lips, muffled by the gag and the pillow. The blow was not strong enough to break her skin and draw blood, but he wasn’t holding back, either. Not that she expected him to.

Another lash landed between her shoulder blades and she recoiled instinctively. He had no idea what he was doing. He grabbed her knees and pulled her down, until her shoulder joints protested, eliminating any play on her arms, then locked down her legs with his knee. He struck her tights next, then her buttocks again, a few more times.

She stifled a yawn. It was getting late and, from the look of things, it was going to take a while. Couldn’t she get a target with a less tedious kink for once? The feet worshipers were at least funny, so were some of the role-players. She wouldn’t say no to being on the other side of the belt right about now either. Then again, it could be worse, too. He didn’t try to choke her so far. 

In the end the belt clanked to the floor and he fumbled with his pants. His hand wandered between her legs, up her thighs and he pushed his fingers inside her. She moaned.

“I see you’re enjoying yourself,” he breathed into her ear and pushed another finger inside then moved his hand, back and forth, grunting and panting.

 _You wish._ She doubted his blundering, hasty attempts were enough to satisfy even somebody who truly was into this kind of entertainment. Still, her body was well trained and responded appropriately.

He slapped her butt cheek and, apparently contented with the amount of foreplay, he pulled her hips up and rammed his meat into her.

Well, at least his dick was small. Little mercies.

He thrusted again and she responded with another cursory moan, momentarily grateful for the bindings, as her current position exempted her from most of the other aspects of the show, all the rubbing and squirming and lulling along that usually went into a good sex performance.

In her head, she idly went through the motions of wrapping her legs around his throat and twisting around until his neck snapped. She didn’t even need her hands free for that.

A few more thrusts and Marcus’ moves slowed down and grew sluggish and his breathing became more ragged. He grunted one more time then collapsed.

She waited thirty seconds, listening, until she heard a snore.

_Finally._

She wiggled and turned around, knocking the slumbering body off of herself. She considered kicking him in the teeth with her knee for a good measure but decided against it, not without a pang of regret. The drug took a long time to work as-is and there was no need to risk waking him up now and it would be preferable if she didn’t leave any lasting marks.

She unlocked the handcuffs, unbuckled and took the gag out then worked her jaw to ward off the cramps. Just the few minutes were enough to rub the corners of her mouth raw. She scrambled out of the bed and took the room in.

Marcus was sprawled on the bed face down with his feet dangling off the edge, his pants still around his knees. Pieces of clothing were strewn all around the room, wherever they landed.

She grabbed the discarded belt, climbed on top of him and sat astride his legs. Pulling his arms behind his back took some effort, but she managed, then she looped the belt around his wrists and buckled it. The tie wasn’t impossible to get out of, but it would still take some serious fumbling before he was able to free himself and his arms would be sore as hell by morning. The reason, she told herself, had nothing to do with satisfying a personal spite. She was only ensuring her own safety, in case he woke up while she was still here.

She wasn’t particularly worried about him rattling her out. She could see the sniggers of his colleagues as he told a story of a petite girl empowering him _in bed_. And, even if he suspected a foul play, in a couple of hours there would be no trace of the drug in his system.

Satisfied, she went through his pockets. The phone was first. It was one of the novel models, with a fingerprint scanner. Technology did make her life easier sometimes, too. She pressed the scanner onto his index finger and the phone unlocked.

The photo wasn’t any easier to look at, this time around. She still stared at it for a long moment, taking in all the excruciating details, then sent it to herself. She had no desire to ever lay her eyes on it again, not now, not ever. But it was still a proof. A proof that Loki was alive, and still out there. A proof of what SHIELD has been doing to him.

The date taken was the eleventh, because of course it was.

She scrubbed the message from the history then went through the rest of the gallery, a couple of days forward and back to the end of August, but there was only a dozen of pictures there, mostly stuff taken by mistake. Marcus was not big on taking photos, but he made an exception for Loki. She didn’t want to wonder how many times he got off to that single snapshot, but the notion appeared in her head anyway, boiling her blood.

She could kill him, right then and there. He wouldn’t even wake up…

The call history and messages were next, but those were almost empty. The last call was from two days ago, from “Boss”, the last message was from his mom, reminding him about some family anniversary. Marcus was a sad loner with a sadistic streak, what made him just perfect for the job.

She tossed the phone onto the bed and continued her search. His wallet was next, then car keys ( _Uh oh, looks like someone’s going to get pissed their designated driver has gone missing_ ) and then – at last – his employee card. She breathed a sigh of relief. It wasn’t granted he would have it on him, depending on how the security system worked it might not be necessary for him to ever carry it outside of the base.

Stealing it wouldn’t do the trick, he would file it as missing first thing in the morning and would have another one issued, making the old one unusable. Not to mention it would raise suspicions and might cause increased security patrols. Thus, the scanner. She inserted the card into the device and turned it on, then watched the progress bar as it read and saved the data. She had a couple blanks back at the flat and would be able to make a copy later.

She pulled another device, a small fingerprint scanner, and scanned Marcus’ thumbs and index fingers. It wasn’t one of the fancy ones able to produce a full 3D fingerprint, just an older tech and kind of a basic one at that. It could still be useful to some extent and it wasn’t like she had access to anything better now.

She replaced Marcus’ keys, phone and card inside his pockets, wiping the screen and the card on the bed covers first. She left the wallet out, taking the sixty-three dollars in cash he had in there. It was a decent motive, and he might accept the monetary gain as the sole cause of the ruse she pulled on him.

He might even consider it worth it.

She packed her stuff back into the bag then collected her clothes and put them back on, hissing as she pulled on her pants. It will be a few days until she’ll able to sit down without flinching…

She swept the room for the last time, getting ready to leave then hesitated, her hand on the door handle. She returned to the side of the bed and regarded the sleeping man for a long while. Then she bent down and pressed her finders to his temples.

His mind recoiled, slipping, squirming, slithering away under her fingertips. She pushed on harder and the protective membrane burst, and she waded in through.

It felt like walking though a muddy field, her own mind being dragged down, held back, staggering while his thoughts and fears and wants whispered past like gusts of wind, concepts and ideas and wishes flashing before her mind’s eye, inane and twisted and everything in between. There was no visual representation, not like with her or with Loki, because Marcus had no concept of that and his mind was just a ball of energy inside his head, not a place.

He felt her and pushed back, awkwardly and she retorted, ripping, cutting, buckling, prying him open, until he gave up and his memories spilled forth. She sifted through them. It wasn’t like watching the events in real time, not at all, each time she brushed against a memory, it popped to existence inside her mind, like it was always there, then faded, as she released her scrutiny.

She found a thread, dark and corrupt and cloying, filled with cravings and needs and pain and hurt and extasy, the line between fantasy and reality blurring dangerously. She pulled on it.

And there it was, wrapped in dark visions of the vilest acts, stashed between dreams of power and might and control. Glimpses of Loki, bone-thin and ghostly pale, bruised, hurt, blinded, strapped down, strung up, led around with his head down. _Vulnerable_. _Demeaned_. _Broken_. New, ( _beautiful)_ bruises blooming on the chalky skin under the grip of ( _my_ ) fingers. A wild, uninhibited desire to hurt, to push, to overpower that got the juices flowing…

She jerked away and staggered back. Her guts churned and she gagged. She barely made it to the bathroom, then she retched, until there was nothing left inside her stomach. She stayed on her knees, dry heaving and choking, clinging to the toilet as the foreign images roiled in her head.

Closing her eyes shut didn’t help. Tears rolled down her cheeks and she barely registered them. Then sobs came, burning in her lungs, burning in her throat, burning in her eyes as they were coming out. She broke down, crying.

\---

She dragged her unruly body up in the end, gripping the edge of the sink to steady herself. She numbly regarded her own reflection in the mirror, the red lines around her eyes and at the corners of her mouth standing out of the ordinary.

 _You are still yourself, Natasha_ , she told her reflection. _Those were not your feelings. Not your wants._

_You didn’t do that._

It felt so real.

It _was_ real and it made it infinitely worse.

\---

She left the motel room soon after.

She didn’t even look at Marcus’ prone form.

She couldn’t. The man had to live, for now.


	38. Breach

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which a declaration of love is made.

It was past midday when she woke up.

She wasn’t even sure how she managed to fall asleep, but she finally did. If she dreamed, she couldn’t remember it. It was a blessing. The events from the night before matched the worst of her nightmares as-is and she really did not need an encore.

She knew, she just knew there was something wrong with Marcus.

She used to get those inklings, those weird suspicions, for as long as she could remembered. She put it on the curb of intuition, of experience, of knowledge about human psychology, even if she couldn’t always pinpoint the cues that guided her. Now, she wasn’t so sure.

Perhaps it was always just _magic_.

There was a knock on the door, and she startled. She stayed on the floor, listening, but the visitor wasn’t leaving and soon there was another knock.

She got up, wrapped a blanket around her shoulders and opened the door.

It was Edna.

“How may I help you?”

The older woman took in her looks and her brows furrowed. “Are you all right, dear?”

“Yeah,” she rasped. “What are you doing here?”

“You look pale.”

“Just a tough night. It will pass.”

“Uhm, I’m sorry, I really didn’t want to bother you, but Chloe called and asked me to check on you.”

Right, she never gave any of the girls her number.

“I’m fine.”

“Are you sure? Chloe said you disappeared without a word yesterday.”

“Yes, I’m sure. Now excuse me, I need to take a shower.”

“Of course, of course, I didn’t mean to…”

Natasha closed the door, cutting Edna’s ramblings short. Then she stood, listening. Edna stayed for a few seconds, then sighed and shuffled up the stairs.

Natasha stood rooted in place there for a moment longer, perplexed. She ran a hand through her hair and pinched the bridge of her nose. In vain, because the headache has already creeped in.

_Great._

\---

“What have I told you about calling me ever again?”

“That I shouldn’t?”

“Oh, so you remembered. I’m deeply honored.”

“If you really didn’t want to talk to me so badly you would hang up by now.”

“I wouldn’t even pick up if you didn’t use a new number each time.”

Natasha chuckled. There was a moment of silence, then Hanima spoke. “Did you find your guy?”

“No, I’m still working on it. In fact, this is…”

“No, stop,” Hanima cut her off. “No matter what follows, the answer is no. I don’t want to hear it. I’m hanging up.”

There was another stretch of silence.

“You know, ultimatums work best if you follow up on them,” Natasha pointed out.

Hanima groaned in frustration. “Okay, what is it? And no, you can’t come over. My marriage is not ready to take that hit again.”

“Don’t worry, I’m still in Ohio.”

“Uh.”

“Is there a safe place we can talk?”

“Yeah, give me ten minutes. I’ll send you a link.”

\---

“You sure this can’t be traced?”

“Yes, Natasha. I am sure. I’m hosting it on my own server and I’m bouncing the packets across seven different nodes.”

“I assume it means something?”

“You always had such a unique understanding for my field of work.” Hanima rolled her eyes. There was a voice coming from somewhere off-screen, the words too quiet to be picked up by the microphone as anything more than garbled noise. Hanima turned away from the camera. “It’s not going to take long; I’ll do it later.”

“Domestic bliss?”

“You would know, right?”

Natasha scoffed.

Hanima’s face turned hard. “What do you want?”

Natasha told her.

“That’s impossible,” Hanima decreed. “And it’s not me being facetious or trying to negotiate terms. It simply cannot. Be. Done. Not without knowing what system it runs on, not without knowing what kind of encryption it uses. If I were with you on site, then maaaybe, but there’s no way to prepare for every scenario, write algorithms to cover every eventuality...”

“That’s why I’m taking you with me.”

Hanima gaped at her from the screen, then the realization dawned on her face. “No. No way. If anyone traces the call, I’m toasted. I’m risking enough as it is, just talking to you. I’m not going back to prison. I don’t care if you’re ready to throw your reputation away, for whatever reason, but I’m not taking the fall with you.”

“Hanima, there’s no one else I can ask. You are my only chance, literally.”

“Then don’t do it.”

“I have to.”

Hanima glowered at her for a moment then sighed. “When do you intend on going in?”

“Tonight.”

Hanima chuckled nervously. “No, I’m serious.”

“So am I. I’m not sure how long my way in will be valid. I went through a lot of shit to get it. Besides, there’s too many people there during the week and I definitely can’t wait until next weekend.”

Hanima rubbed her face in exasperation then pushed an unruly strand of hair back under the scarf. “I’m too soft,” she declared. “Okay, here’s what you need to get.” She started typing and lines started popping in the chat window.

Natasha skimmed through the list. “Are you sure I’ll be able to get everything in a small town, in just a few hours?”

“Don’t know. Most likely not. There’s a good shop in Columbus though. I’m sending you the address. It should have everything you need. If you go now, it should leave us with just enough time to prepare.”

“I don’t know, the timing is tight…”

“Then maybe stop talking to me and go?”

Natasha closed the laptop and went.

\---

Halfway through the ride she started regretting ever tossing the Kid Rock CD. The antenna was broken, the radio played only static, no matter how many times she switched stations, there was no other CD in the glovebox and silence started to get oppressive pretty fast. The last thing she needed was being alone with her thoughts.

She pulled out her phone, positioned it on the dashboard, turned the recording on and started talking.

\---

The small electronic repair shop was located in a back alley behind a drycleaner and a convenience store. The signboard above the entrance was hand-painted and bore an “est. 1973” notation at be bottom. Natasha understood why Hanima liked it the moment she crossed the threshold. Simple shelves made of steel profiles and wooden boards, lining both sides of the narrow space, were bulging under the weight of _stuff_. Computer parts, pieces of electronics, something that looked suspiciously like vintage surveillance equipment too.

She walked the length of the room and stopped in front of the counter at the back. The surface was littered with devices in various stages of disassembly. The shopkeeper, a lanky twenty-something with greasy hair falling over his face, glanced up at her as she walked in then fixed his eyes back on the reading material in his hands, pretending he didn’t notice her.

Natasha cleared her throat.

The clerk gave off a long-suffering groan and put his book down. It had an anime girl with blue hair and anatomically impossible boobs on the cover and all the writing was in Korean. He took his legs off the counter, pushed his thick glasses down his nose and eyed Natasha with engineered disinterest.

“How may I help you?” he asked.

Natasha handed him the list.

He went through it, and, as he did, his attitude changed: his back straightened and he pushed the glasses back up. He got to the end and checked the other side of the paper, then whistled. His eyes jumped to Natasha and he studied her, judging. “I’m sorry miss, but we don’t carry this sort of items,” he decided in the end. “We are a respectable establishment.”

Natasha looked around. “Mhm.”

He looked at her with impatient anticipation. She put a hand on her hip and stared back.

“I mean, we might have _some_ of it, if you came by later this week,” he balked.

“How about all of it, and now?”

The kid grunted, rose from his seat, and pulled the sleeves of his worn denim jacket up, then headed to the backroom. He stopped at the door and turned back to her. “Why do you need all this stuff for anyway?”

“I’m throwing a network security themed party for my six-year-old niece,” she answered without a hitch.

The kid chuckled, shook his head, and disappeared into the backroom.

\---

She left half an hour later, carrying a small bag, containing most of what she needed. There were still some items missing from Hanima’s list, but Rudy – that was the kid’s name – directed her to a Microcenter downtown that should carry those.

So far, so good.

\---

“Okay, now what?”

“Plug the modem into the Arduino module. The blue printed board. Yeah, that one. No, the other way around! Oh god, don’t push, just wiggle it around until all the pins go in!”

Natasha grunted and wiggled the connector until it snapped into place.

“Aaaand… yep, the connection should be established. Let’s give it a test run. I’m switching over now. Hear you in a moment.”

The videocall ended and the chat window disappeared without a prompt. Natasha tapped her fingers on her thigh.

A few minutes later her burner phone rang. There were just asterisks showing up in place of the caller ID. She pushed the headset into her ear.

“Hello?”

“I’m hooked. Can you hear me all right?”

“There’s a bit of static, but it’s good enough.”

“Yeah, that’s the best I can do.”

“You’re a genius, Hani.”

“Of course I am. Remember, you have to find an internal network node and plug in the signal booster, or I wouldn’t be able to talk to you – or do anything – without a cellular network coverage.”

“Yeah, I know, I know.”

“I’m just making sure.”

“Thank you.”

“You will thank me later; in a slim chance this works out and we are not arrested first thing in the morning. What’s the plan now?”

“Go get some sleep. I’ll call you once I’m in.”

Hanima sighed. “Good luck, Natasha.”

She hummed in agreement. Copious amount of luck was exactly what she needed now.

\---

She went through her equipment once more, checking if everything was in order. She didn’t have any of the heavy combat gear, but she still had a protective vest she could wear under her clothes. She put it on, got dressed and holstered her gun, double checking the primary and spare ammunition clips. It was just the backup arm she kept in her apartment, but it would still do. If all went like she intended she wouldn’t even have to shoot it. She was still carrying it though; she wasn’t going to make the same mistake twice.

She put everything she needed into a small backpack. The rest of her personal belongings still fit in a single duffle bag. She sighted and shook her head. Depending on how things were going to work out, there might be no opportunity to return to her New York apartment before shit went down, which would mean this was all she had.

No matter, she would figure it out.

One final sweep and she was out of the door. She left the light on and left the key on the table. Edna should have no problem finding it once she notices Natasha’s gone.

She put the car on neutral then pushed it out of the driveway, not turning on the engine until it was already on the street. She watched the single lit up window for a moment then drove away, without looking back.

\---

It was past midnight when she arrived at her observation spot. She removed the camera and packed it up, then went back to the car and went through the recording. The last day was missing, just as she knew it would, she didn’t have an opportunity to swing by and replace the battery or the memory card. Other than that, there didn’t seem to be anything out of the ordinary.

She turned the binoculars to the night mode and watched. It was still too early for the breach, giving the night shift another hour or two to grow tired was advisable and would still leave her with enough time.

The base was silent, only the patrols making their tired rounds around the perimeter, but John’s DeWitt blue Audi occupied its usual spot on the parking lot, throwing her for a loop. She didn’t figure out what exactly his role was, but the payroll would suggest he sat somewhere close to the top. Why would he be here on a Saturday night?

Before she could figure it out, the silence was pierced by a whirring sound of an approaching chopper. It carried over the fields way before Natasha spotted the small, unmarked machine, coming from North. It settled on the airfield not far away from the main building.

It was one of the low attitude vessels used in shorter flights, so whoever used it didn’t come from afar, Cleveland perhaps, or somewhere beyond the border, meaning there was some international collab going on.

A squad came forth from the main building. Four agents in the dark combat gear and a bunch of regular soldiers. The engine slowly winded down and two suited figures got off the chopper, just as the base staff approached.

She adjusted the magnification on her binoculars and observed the new arrivals. They didn’t move like field agents; their suits were also too well fitted and too expensive for that. The soldiers didn’t salute them, so they weren’t a part of military hierarchy either. Bureaucrats or politicians then.

The four-man squad of agents came forth to escort the visitors inside, while the soldiers took their positions guarding the field. The bird stayed out in the open with the pilot still inside. It wasn’t a drop-off then but a visit, not long enough to warrant two round trips or leading the machine into the hangar.

The procession disappeared inside the main building. The soldiers loosened their stances, but did not leave their spots, so it meant that – whatever it was that was just happening – hasn’t played in full yet and they were ordered to hold their positions.

Natasha watched, precarious.

A quarter of an hour later the rotor blades whirred back to life. The suits emerged from the building, a larger group of guards trailing a few steps behind. The first pair was dragging a person between them. It could’ve been a woman, but it was hard to tell from the distance, with the loose, gray uniform hanging from short, skinny frame and with the buzzed-off hair. Their hands and ankles were cuffed and there was a chain looped between the two; a piece of dark cloth covered their eyes.

Natasha bit her lip, the greasiest pieces of Marcus’ memory floating to the surface of her mind.

The procession passed in front of the soldiers, completely unabashed. No one reacted, no one even turned their head. Like nothing out of ordinary was happening. Like the sight of a chained, blindfolded prisoner being hoarded by a bunch of burly dudes in unmarked uniforms was a daily occurrence.

Natasha wasn’t naïve enough to believe stuff like that didn’t happen, she saw enough during her career to know for a fact that it did. But there were places, special, hidden places where such business was conducted, and the agencies were usually a bit more subtle about it. This wasn’t the Helicarrier hanging cloaked over international waters or some secret base in a lawless land, they were out in the open, right smack in the middle of Ohio.

The person was ushered into the hold and strapped into a seat. Two guards remained inside to act as a convoy, the suits boarded a moment later and the helicopter took off, heading back North.

She pressed her fingers to her eyes.

Marcus’ dark memories joined forces with her own recollections of the doomed flight, then a lot of other ones like that in the past, and a cumbersome realization flowered in her brain. She was one of the guards, not so long ago. And, just like them, she didn’t much care, at least not enough to do something about it. She was doing what she was told to do and that removed any responsibility for her actions.

She rarely thought about what happened on that day. The outcome was self-evident, and she revisited the parts that had important strategical ramifications, but she never put much reflection to her own reactions and deeds. It returned with redoubled strength as the vision played out in her head. And now, it were her own vicious thoughts, her own listlessness that burned inside her, hot with shame.

Natasha of that memory was a stranger to her now.

She had no right making it only about Loki, not anymore. The entire system was rotten, designed to swallow people whole, to make them meaningless cogwheels in the machine of the state, to reduce them to insignificant column in the statistics.

And why?

The answer was always the same, whether it was USSR or US or any other country in the world. “For the good of Mankind.” The perfect excuse. So, what if some people must suffer? It’s all in the name of progress, security, freedom.

And no one ever cares. It’s the guilty ones. And it’s not them.

Until it is.

\---

She breached the perimeter in one of the blind spots behind the barracks, using bolt cutters to make a neat entrance for herself, big enough to slip right through, small enough to remain unnoticed for a while. They would find it, she was sure, but she would be far away by then, hopefully.

She skulked along the walls, staying in the shadows. Oh, it was so much easier when she could sense the energies of people around. She couldn’t hold her attention on that all the time and remain fully aware of her immediate surroundings, but brief sweeps from time to time still did wonders and she could trace the movements of enemies the regular way in the meantime – with the skill of prediction.

The guard in the Eastern gate was soundly asleep. The door was locked, but there was a key still inserted on the inside of the door, which she could see from the window. She retrieved it by pushing it in with a pin and sliding it through the crack under the door and got inside. The guard stirred, but did not wake up and she studied the camera feeds for quite some time, committing the angles and cones of view to her memory. The main entrance was covered with three different cameras, there was also one above the back door that lead to a small, fenced-in backyard and some rotating ones covering most of the perimeter of the building, including all windows. It didn’t change all that much – even if she could reach any of the windows without being spotted, they were all barred and dealing with that would take too much time and could potentially garner unwanted attention.

No, she needed another way in.

She headed for the barracks next. The layout of the base was similar to all the other objects of this kind she saw so far and she quickly found her way into the washhouse, where she fished a white smock out of a crate of similar garments that were waiting for their turn to be pressed and folded. She stashed it in her backpack.

She waited for the patrol to cross, hidden in a crook of a wall, then crossed the yard and dove into the small alley between the main building and the administrative office. It was the only façade that was not covered by surveillance in full. She took out the grappling gun, fed the ending of the thin steel rope into the devised slot then shot it. It bit into the brickwork a foot off the top and secured with a click. She gave it a reassuring tug. It held, which was just great, because she only had one of those.

She hooked the line into the turnbuckle and climbed. If she had some of those on the island it would make her life so much better. Both of their lives, in fact.

She vaulted over the parapet and released the hook, then rolled up the line and stashed the gun back into the backpack. It was useless now, but she didn’t want to leave more traces of her presence that it was absolutely necessary.

There was an access hatch further down the roof, towards the middle of the building. She tugged on it, but the kickplate that covered it was locked in place from the inside, with no way to open it from her side other than just cutting it open and the small laser cutter she brought would take way too long to deal with that.

Her eyes dashed towards the air handling units. There were a few of those, including one huge box, way too big to serve just the above-ground portion of the building, most likely there for the underground parts.

Despite what action movies tended to show, air ducts were not the most convenient sneaking routes, far from it. Only the biggest ducts that served entire areas and not single rooms were wide enough to fit a person and even those never ended with convenient vents leading straight to the room one needed to access, they just tapered further and further down as the amount of areas they served decreased, until they turned too small to crawl through. Not to mention the structural reinforcements inside and the fact that climbing into a horizontal air duct would just result in going through the false ceiling along with it, more often than not, as they were not designed to carry a weight of a person.

Still, beggars can’t be choosers, and the main vertical risers leading to and from the installation shaft were big enough to grant her the access, if she found a proper exit point inside.

She unwrapped the insulation from the supply duct in the point where it connected to the wall and started undoing the bolts that fastened it to the wall. A couple of minutes of passionate unscrewing later and she pulled it free and away from the wall, removed the filter mesh and shone her flashlight inside. The duct constricted just past the level of the roof, but even with that it was still wide enough. It went straight down for about the height of two floors, then turned. That would have to be her exit point.

She focused and swept the area below. There were people in the building, but she couldn’t sense anyone close to the shaft. There was no telling what kind of room the duct culminated in, but it was located next to the elevators bank, so there was hoping it was some sort of a technical space. Or not.

She attached the line to a metal pole that held an antenna, then lowered herself inside. A cloud of dust rose as she brushed her knee against the surface of the duct – it’s been a while since it’s been cleaned – and she coughed into her elbow as it scratched in her throat and prickled in her eyes. She pulled her scarf up and stayed in place, breathing and listening for a moment, before she allowed herself to continue down. The faint light from the lampposts that just barely dispersed the darkness up on the roof was now completely gone and she descended in complete darkness, the world consisting only of the ratcheting pulley under her fingers and the pressure of the duct wall behind her back, until her feet connected to the bottom of the duct. She fell into a crouch. Metal walls protested the load with a groan, shifting under her weight, but did not give way, not yet at least.

She felt around for an inspection hatch, that should be somewhere around the bend, then – when that proven inconclusive – she pulled out the flashlight again. And surely, there was one, a few feet ahead in the horizontal part of the duct. She crawled, wary to put her weight on the connection pieces and not on the wall itself, and the duct creaked and bent as she went. She kicked the hatch out. It clattered to the ground and she peeked outside.

It was indeed a technical room, or, more like, some sort of storage area. She squeezed through, legs first, then dropped to the floor.

So far, so good.

She fixed her hair, brushed the dust off her clothes the best she could and pulled on the apron. It was show time.

\---

The guard at the main gate leading to the elevators didn’t even deign her with a glance as she casually swiped her access card on the reader, her face down and pulled tight in concentration as she studied the contents of the file she nicked from one of the offices she passed on her way. The contents made very little sense to her, but it was still a good prop.

The card still worked, which meant Marcus did not report the happenings of the previous night to his superiors, or, even if he did, the connection hasn’t been established.

Once inside the elevator, she had to swipe the card again. The lift itself was old, but the panel was one of the fancy, touch controlled ones, obviously a new addition, and only blinked to life once she ran the employee card against the side. It processed for a few nail-biting seconds, then lit up, showing her the available levels, each with a brief description on the side. She tapped on “laboratories – 5”, while frowning at the “detainment -7”.

She bit her lip, waiting for an unauthorized access alarm to sound or – at least – for a prompt to pop up, urging her to confirm the credentials with a fingerprint, or an iris scan, or whatever else could the system require. Then the lift jerked and started moving down.

Well, then.

The elevator stopped and she stepped out into a dimly lit corridor. Rows of doors lined the walls, with numbers and designations specified on the plaques beside each. She passed a couple labs and conference rooms until she reached one with a name. A personal office. She scouted ahead then pulled on the handle. It was closed. There was a magnetic card reader built into the door, but also a keyhole, presumably for emergency access.

Usually at that point she would have a skeleton key, designed to open all openable doors in the building, provided to her by her team beforehand. A sweep of the land, too. A main objective lined up and a straight path to reach it. She sighed and pulled out her precision tools.

The door closed behind her with a click and she breathed a sight of relief. The office was small, big enough to fit a desk, two chairs and a line of shelves on the back side and not much more. A single picture of a sunny beach adorned the otherwise empty walls. It was a bleak, cramped place and she pitied anyone who was forced to spend long work hours confined to it.

She unplugged the fax machine from the network socket (seriously, a fax machine?) and connected Hanima’s device. The diodes on it blinked a couple of times then glowed steady green. There was a dialing signal in her earpiece.

“Hello?” sounded Hanima’s voice, just after a single signal. “You in?”

“Yep, I’m in,” Natasha whispered back.

Hanima hummed. “Yeah, I’m linking, right now. Where are you? Did you find the mainframe?”

“No, it’s just some office. I need help finding the server, or at least an access point. Can you help me look for it?”

“The connection you’re using is isolated from the rest of the LAN. I need a direct access.”

“Uhm…”

“Is there a PC in there? A desktop or something like that?”

“Yeah.”

“Plug the other end of the setup into the USB port.”

Natasha pulled on the cable on the back end of the contraption. “It won’t reach. The cable’s too short.”

She could _hear_ Hanima rolling her eyes on the other side. “Just move the computer closer, geez, do I really have to tell you this stuff?”

Natasha ignored the jab in the words and wrestled the computer tower free from its place under the desk. It moved and pulled on the monitor cable. The display wobbled, forcing Natasha to catch it before it toppled over.

“What was that?” Hanima inquired.

“Nothing. It’s connected.”

“Push the power button. You know, big, circular thing that goes pushy-pushy somewhere in the front?”

Natasha bit down on the retort and pushed the button.

“Aaand… my god, why does it take so long, haven’t you guys heard about SSDs?”

“It’s still loading,” Natasha provided.

“I figured,” Hanima said. The login screen popped up. “Ugh, finally.”

The cursor moved, then strings of letters started appearing, first in the password box, then in some sort of an overlay that appeared on top of it. An error message flashed a few times, then the loading animation showed up again, taking Hanima to the desktop. “Voila,” Hanima exclaimed. “Now off to the harder part.”

Natasha watched and waited, as Hanima tapped away commands, the sound of clicking carrying over the connection. She was running some sort of network scan, that much Natasha could tell from the addresses that popped up. “Okay, I know where it is in the network. As for the physical location…” There was some more tapping and Hanima hummed to herself or muttered “oh, that’s curious” or “no, that’s not it” a couple of times. Natasha sat back in the chair and waited.

“Okay, I’m pulling up the plan of the facility.” A file opened, showing up the layout. “That’s the floor you’re on right now, right?”

“Yeah.”

“You need to go down a level and then down here,” Hanima said, switched layouts and circled the cursor around an area in the bottom right corner. “That’s the BMS control room and there’s an unmarked technical space with a huge air duct leading to it from the outside just on the other side of that wall, my bet is that’s where they keep the servers. Any questions?”

“Nope.”

“Great, hear you in a minute.”

Hanima disconnected and Natasha picked up her equipment, replaced the items she moved, took one final sweep of the room to make sure its just how she found it, then retreated back into a hallway. Only to bump into a person that was just passing by. The impact knocked the prop folder she was still carrying out of her hands. It fell to the floor, spilling its contents.

“I’m so sorry,” the woman uttered and bent over to pick up the papers.

Natasha crouched next to her. “No, that’s entirely my fault, I should’ve looked where I’m going.”

Woman’s eyes stopped on one of the pages she was holding and her brows furrowed, then she looked up at Natasha. Natasha pulled the page out of her fingers. Woman’s lips were pursed.

“I don’t think we’ve met before,” she said, hesitation evident in her voice, then her eyes dashed to Natasha’s chest, where her employee’s ID should be. “Which division are you from?”

“RnD,” Natasha said. “Third floor.” That much she remembered from the plans. “Name’s Welles. Like Wales, but with an E,” she said, smiled, and extended her hand in welcome.

The woman got up and was now measuring her with open wariness. She did not shook Natasha’s hand. “What are you doing down here?”

“My boss sent me down to grab this stuff from Hewlett’s office and give it to doctor DeWitt. He forgot about it or something.”

“You mean, ‘she’?”

 _Goddamned gender neutral names._ “Or her. It’s like my third time down here and I don’t think I’ve ever met doctor Hewlett. I was told you might require some further assistance, too,” Natasha said. “Busy night, am I right?”

The woman eyed her for a moment longer, then scoffed. “If just that,” she said, then chuckled nervously. “I’m Naomi.” She chucked again and pointed at her badge. ‘Naomi Randall, Bsc,’ it said. “As you can see.”

Natasha smiled back. “I need to stop misplacing mine. They’ll fire me one of those days just for that.”

“It’s a wonder they didn’t already,” Naomi said and there was just a little bit of acid in her words. “Watch out for DeWitt. He is in a temper today. More so than usually.”

“I will,” Natasha responded with a small nod, “thanks for the warning.”

“Don’t mention it. We have to watch out for ourselves, cause no man will.”

“Right. Now, excuse me, I don’t want to keep the good doctor waiting, if he is as pissed as you say.”

“Yes, of course. See you around!”

“Yeah, see you!” Natasha said, turned on her heel and marched down the hall, torn between praying to all that’s saint that it was the right way to DeWitt’s office and scolding herself for her carelessness.

\---

There was a guard in the BMS room, hunched over his desk, his eyes firmly on the phone in his hands. He sprung up and started to shout something before the tranquillizer dart she jabbed into his jugular vein kicked in. The yell froze in his throat and he crumbled to the floor. She dragged him away and left his limp body behind a stack of electrical boxes. Some backup power setup, she supposed.

She jumped onto the seat, hooked Hanima’s device into the port in the console and waited for the connection.

“Took you long enough,” Hanima chastised. “I was starting to get worried.”

“No need, I’m fine. Can you work your magic from here, or do I need to get to the other room?”

There was a glass partition dividing the part of the room with the console and the rows of server racks, but the door was closed shut and locked with what looked like a solid, dual layer magnetic lock, secured on both sides.

“Let me see,” Hanima said and there was the unmistakable sound of her fingers running across the keyboard. Was it so clicky for some reason or was it just for show? “Yeah, this is good, there’s a direct access from here. What are we looking for?”

“Everything between twenty-fifth of August and, let’s say, twentieth of September.”

“Everything everything? There’s going to be terabytes of data…”

“As much as you can. Focus on the detainee transfer data, but any surveillance from the lower levels, daily reports, science data sheets might be useful. Just… anything you can find.”

“I can’t really look at the files, only the manifests. I’m just dumping it to your drive, downloading it over the network would take too long and I can’t take too much bandwidth or they would know someone’s hogging their upload.”

“Just… get whatever that might look useful. I trust your judgement.”

“It’s not like you have any other choice,” Hanima smirked. “Uh oh.”

“What?”

“The firewall just blocked one of my little guys. Don’t worry, I can… Motherfucker!”

“Hani?”

“No, it’s fine, just a small hiccup. I can deal with it.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah, yeah, this is a piece of cake.” There was a strain in her voice. “I’m downloading first batch of files. Security reports, judging from the folder structure. Is the drive active?”

“The blue light is blinking.”

“Yep, that’s it.”

“So, now what?”

“Now you’re going to wait for it to copy over.”

“How long that’s going to take?”

“Dunno, a couple of minutes at least, depending on the transfer rate, then I have another download queued up. Some video files, so it’s going to take even longer and the sequential read rate is abysmal. Seriously, don’t you government folk ever heard about hardware upgrade cycles?”

“Can’t you make it go faster?”

“I’m already using best compression. I might be a tech whizz, but I’m not a magician. Unless you are, all we can do now is wait.”

 _Well, about that._ “Okay. Should we stay on the line or…”

“No, no, we have to stay connected. My link is running through the same signal routes and I have to keep a tab on it. This works best.”

“Okay then,” Natasha said and sat back on the chair.

The entire left side of the console was a panel of monitors, showing camera feeds from inside of the facility. Most showed darkened, empty rooms, the furnishing and equipment barely recognizable with the faint light coming from the hallways, some showed labs with people in white coveralls drifting between workstations or hunched over devices and benches. Then, relegated to one of the smaller monitors in the corner, was the feed from the basement.

Natasha’s hand went for the controller without much thinking and she flicked between cameras. First in line were views on the corridors, long and nondescript, with gray concrete floor and tilled walls, rows of reinforced doors lining each side. Then came the interrogation rooms, with their metal tables bolted to the floor, chairs folded along the walls and conveniently placed D-rings on the floor with an easy-to-guess purpose.

Then, there were the cells. Dark and cramped, some with just a narrow metal shelf on the wall to serve as a bunk, and some devoid even of that little comfort. Some were empty. Not all.

Natasha flipped between images of men and women, slumbering or sitting huddled in the corners of their little, dark boxes.

She pressed the button again, the image changed and she gaped at the screen. It was another cell and in the middle of it sat a girl, long, fair hair falling onto her narrow shoulders, a thick chain running from a wide metal collar around her throat, linking it to a lug in the wall. Her eyes, set deep in her gaunt, emotionless face were staring directly at the camera, glowing bright violet.

“Hani?”

“Yeah?”

“Can you intercept a feed from a camera?”

“Uhm, depends. Is it connected to the server?”

“It runs through the console. I’m looking at it right now…”

“Then yeah, possibly. Can you identify the stream source? There must be at least a couple dozen running on the network at one time.”

“I don’t know… It’s coming from the level below.”

“So…” There was a couple of clicks in the background and murmurs as Hanima sifted through the sources. “The detainment level? Okay, I… “ There was a moment of silence. “What the fuck? Who are those people?! Why are they there? What’s going on?”

“I don’t know, Hani,” Natasha said bluntly.

“Woah, why are her eyes glowing?”

“I don’t know,” Natasha repeated.

“Are those… is this some sort of superpowered folk prison? Did you know about this?”

“I… suspected.”

Hanima uttered something unintelligible under her breath and tapped away.

“This is where they kept your guy, right?”

“Yeah.”

“But he is not there anymore, is he?”

“No.”

“That’s why you’re trying to find him…”

A pause.

“Natasha?”

“Yes?”

“What are we going to do about it?”

Natasha didn’t answer. What _could_ they do? She was alone, without any backup, her only support connected via wire from five hundred miles away, her spare pistol and two dozen bullets her only weapon, against an entire facility, with dozens of armed guards. And, if that weren’t enough, she had no idea who those people were and the reasons why they were confined. They were hostages kept there without any record or oversight and that alone made it wrong, but they could still be dangerous. No one would employ this level of security just for a bunch of unfortunate bystanders.

“Nat?”

“I don’t think there’s anything we _can_ do… Not like this.”

Hanima made a little noise that sounded like she wanted to protest, but didn’t say it out loud.

“Are you recording this?”

“Yes. I’ll try finding out who they are, at least. Maybe…”

“That’s the…”

“Someone’s coming! Hide!” Hanima yelled.

Natasha dropped to her knees on instinct alone, tugging the pistol free. Just as she did, the door beeped and opened and someone stepped inside. There was a sound of a gun’s safety lever being released and she matched it.

“Come out,” a male voice said. “I know you’re in here.”

She sprung up and aimed her gun at the man. His own weapon was up already. They stood like that for a moment, aiming at one another.

John DeWitt crooked his head and studied her curiously. “It was you, wasn’t it? In my house.”

Natasha pursed her lips and stayed silent.

“Come on, the place will be swarming with guards in just a minute. They will get it out of you, in the end. They always do. You can tell me now just as well.”

He was bluffing. Even if there was no audible notification, Hanima would have warned her if an alarm was raised.

“And what if I were?” she answered, playing along for now.

“I would ask you why were you there, why you’re here now and where your allegiances lie.”

“It’s… complicated,” she evaded. She had no idea what kind of answers he wanted to hear.

“It’s a simple question.”

“Well, it’s not a simple answer. But we can start with you lowering your gun and putting it away. If you were going to shoot me, you would have shot me already.”

“You first,” he said and flicked his wrist.

Natasha decocked the gun and slowly lowered it, waiting for him to make his move. He stared at her for a moment longer, then followed. He stashed the gun in the pocket of his apron, still within his reach. Natasha did the same.

“How did you know I was here?”

He scoffed. “My subordinates are very loyal. The cameras got the rest.”

 _But of course_. “And yet, you came to talk instead of dropping all the heavy artillery on my ass.”

“You came looking for something in my house. You’re looking for something now. I want to know what it is and why it’s so important.”

“Why does it matter?”

“I’m a scientist. Every question is potentially worth finding an answer.”

Now that was just some first class bullshit. “Mhm.”

“I’m going to ask you once more: who are you and why are you here?”

She bit her lip, considering. He wasn’t trying to kill her. He wasn’t calling the security. He was standing there, talking to her. It couldn’t be a coincidence.

“You kept someone here,” she said, carefully. “Someone who is my friend.”

“Oh, is that so?” he sneered. “Those people have no friends, at least not important ones,” he added, pointing his chin at the monitor, still showing the view from the basement. “They wouldn’t be here otherwise.”

She swallowed the protest that welled up in her throat. “What is the purpose of this facility?”

“We are doing exactly what is required of us, nothing more, nothing less. We keep people on the outside safe. And blissfully unaware.”

“For the good of mankind,” she said dully.

“Yes, exactly. It’s also exactly what you and the entirety of your agency does, whichever one it is,” he flashed a nasty smile at her surprise. “That’s right. I’ve seen enough of you people to know the type. Silent and deadly and with zero ideas how reality truly works. So, I’m asking, one last time: what is the real reason of your presence here and who do you work for?”

“I don’t work for anybody, not anymore. I’m here to find my friend.”

“And who would that be?”

“Loki.”

His face twisted in a wince, then he glared at her through slanted eyes until his eyes widened with recognition. “I know you,” he muttered. “You’re one of the Avengers.”

“The one and only.”

He scratched his nose and adjusted his glasses. “You’re not with _them_.”

“Them?”

He shrugged dismissively, but she had her suspicious none-the-less.

“You mean Hydra?”

He winced again and leaned on the console, his fingers clenching the edge with white-knuckled intensity. She kicked the chair and it rolled in his direction. He clapped down on it with a heavy sigh. She propped herself on the desk and folded her arms. “That’s one name to call it, I guess,” he muttered.

“What do you know?”

“Not much, but you do hear things, read things between the lines. And they hold all the power here. Not directly, of course, all orders go through the usual hoops, but in the end _they_ tell us what to do and we do it. It wasn’t that bad at first, but now…”

“You sound like you mind it”

He shrugged again.

“Yet you still work here.”

“And where else am I supposed to work? I abandoned my academic career years ago. Military had best funding then and I just got married…” He sighed again and pushed his fingers under his glasses, rubbing his eyes. “I don’t have anything else. If I quit, I would never find work in the field again, _they_ will make sure of it. I’d be nobody.”

“Who are all those people?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” he admitted and looked down to his hands, his fingers picking at the button on his cuff. “It’s not wise to ask such questions, so we do not. They are brought here and we are told what to do with them and we do it. We don’t carry out investigations or look for motives, that’s not our purpose. We’re here to find out what makes them _tick_.”

She listened to him speak in silence, the com-link in her ear airing only static. Hanima was listening, Natasha knew she was, but she was too smart to interrupt.

“I tried to help him, you know, I truly did,” DeWitt said after a moment of silence, still not looking up at her. “I knew who he was and what he has done, but…” He paused. “It still wasn’t right.”

“None of this is.”

He slowly shook his head.

“He is not here. But you know that already, don’t you?” he said. “And before you ask the follow-up question: no, I don’t know where he was taken. I was never told and I would never ask. You don’t want to know more than you need to if you want to survive here.”

“When was that?”

“On the… eleventh, I think. I wasn’t here when they took him away, I only found out later, when I came back to work. We still had some… procedures lined up and we had to scrap it. We were directed to other projects and the subject was never brough up again.”

“Who else was on that?”

“A few of my colleagues and an outside team. I’m not sure what jurisdiction they fell under, it was a package deal and we were told to work with them, so we did. They were gone the same day.”

“Do you have any names?”

“Yes,” he said and pulled out a small notepad from his pocket, then started scribbling. He handed her the note and she skimmed through the list. None of the names seemed familiar. Hell, most could even be false, knowing the principles under which SHIELD – and Fury in particular – operated.”

“Thank you,” she said, even though the gratitude was the last thing on her mind.

He waved his hand in dismissal. “I’ll have to report you.”

“I know. Can you give me some time?”

“Some. Not much.”

“Ten minutes?”

“Five. Starting now.”

\---

Natasha passed the main building entrance before she hit into a sprint. She was almost at the hole in the fence when the alarm blared and the emergency lights came on, turning the night into a day. She dove into a patch of bushes and landed flat on her belly, her head close to the ground, then she started crawling. A floodlight swept the area, once, then twice and she froze, each time, and breathed in relief once it passed without stopping. Sounds of rushed movement, boots clattering on the beaten dirt, engines roaring to life, chased after her.

The ascending whirr of chopper blades winding up permeated the air just as she reached the thicket she used to conceal her car. She jumped onto the driver’s seat and started the engine, hoping it would drown in the ruckus raising from the base. She didn’t turn to go to the main road, she would be too easy to spot there, she turned off the dashboard backlight, kept the road lights off and allowed the vehicle to slowly roll down the field track, the path barely discernible in the moonless darkness. The chopper took off and flew past, its downwards facing searchlight missing her by a few dozen yards.

Stepping down on the gas pedal and getting out of the area as quickly as possible was a tantalizing prospect, but she squashed the thought. The road was narrow and ran on an embarkment and she couldn’t go faster than a couple of miles an hour, not without seeing where she was going. And, even if that wasn’t an issue, going faster would make the tires raise a cloud of dust, way too easy to spot from above.

It wasn’t until she could no longer see the floodlights shining from the base in the rearview mirror and the noise of helicopters making their rounds faded into a background buzz that she turned on the lights on and sped up a little.

She stayed on the dirt roads, meandering between fields and – at one point – on a dyke between two reservoirs, avoiding main routes. They must’ve already figured she didn’t leave by foot, and there were roaming patrols and roadblocks waiting for her there.

A faded sign marked a narrow path, leading through an overgrown meadow, towards dark outlines of farm buildings. She slowed down, then turned.

The gate was missing, it’s remnants hanging sadly from one of the posts, and she drove onto the courtyard. There was a cottage, or, more precisely, what was left of one – a ruin with a collapsed roof and all the windows missing, then some brick outhouses and a huge straw barn further in the back. One of the door-leaves was ajar and the structure has stood there for so long without collapsing, so – after a minute deliberation – she guided the car inside and turned off the engine. The doors squeaked and protested when she swung it close on the rusted hinges. Then she stood in the darkened interior, listening to the faraway sounds of the choppers, the adrenaline levels slowly subsiding.

What a waste of time. Not only she put herself in danger, again, she also didn’t learn anything she didn’t know or at least suspected already. Two weeks and she got nothing, no new leads, no solid info. The names of Fury’s team DeWitt provided carried little value and the file transfer didn’t complete before she had to scram, so that ought to be a dud as well.

At least she didn’t get shot at, this time.

The phone rang and she startled, dropping into a fighting stance, before she got her bearing.

“Hey,” she whispered into the com-link.

“Oh god, are you all right?” Hanima breathed, her voice thick and trembling with worry.

Natasha had to disconnect without a warning when she evacuated the facility, so the last thing Hanima heard was DeWitt giving her five minutes before all hell broke loose. “I made it out. I’m hiding, for now. I’ll make a break for it tomorrow, but for now I’ll let them spread their forces further and thinner. Hopefully.”

“I was worried,” Hanima said. “I still am, to be honest. What the hell did you get yourself into? What was that science guy talking about. What’s _Hydra_?”

Natasha stifled a groan. “It would be better for all of us if you didn’t hear that part. The lesser you know, the safer you are.”

“Well, I feel like it’s a bit too late for that, I’m already in this shit up to my chest. Or my nose, if I were to go by how much it stinks. So go on, spill.”

Natasha hesitated.

“Come on,” Hanima prompted. “You dragged me into this, you owe me some answers. And I sincerely hope they are better than what google tells me. Who are those geniuses who figured that sharing a name with a bunch of Nazi terrorists is a good idea?”

“Uhm, yeah, about that…”

“You can’t be serious!”

“I am.”

“But it says here that they disbanded in forty-five, after Captain America killed their leader.”

“I have no idea how they survived and how they got into SHIELD,” Natasha admitted. “But they did. I have no idea how deep it goes, but every scrap of evidence I find seems to have their fingerprints on it.”

Hanima said nothing for a long while. “So those people there… They are basically imprisoned by Nazis. In the middle of Ohio. In twenty-twelve.”

Natasha grunted an uncomfortable confirmation.

“What’s the plan? You want to expose it? Make it all public?”

“That’s the idea, eventually. But so far I have only three testimonies of which not a single one would stand in court. I need something solid, something that couldn’t be handwaved away and buried.”

“Well, we have the surveillance recordings and there might be something in the files we got.”

“I had to unplug the drive before the copy finished. I guess I just wasted your time. I’m sorry.”

“Now, now, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. The drive should still be fine and I went with smaller packages, so some of the files must’ve made it. I kept on dumping data while you were busy talking with doctor pawn, too. And, even if some of it got corrupted in the process, there’s a way to get something out of it.”

“Hani? I think I love you.”

“You’ve told me that before,” Hanima said, and there was just a hint of reproach in her voice.

\---

The hay smelled of dust and prickled her skin even though her clothes. The moon rose and shone through the cracks between the weathered boards and the wind whistled among the beams and she lay there, thinking of nothing at all, until sleep claimed her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My IT-inclined brother claims the hacking scenes make sense, if in the vaguest of ways and only if you squint. So do squint, pretty please.


	39. The other side

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which some ties are severed.

She was almost in Pittsburgh when her phone rang. The main one, not the burner. She looked at the restricted caller’s ID for a while before accepting the call. She did not speak, waiting for the opening line.

“You there?” It was Clint.

“Yeah.”

“Toss the sim card, they will be tracing it, if they aren’t already,” he said. He was using his businesslike, factual tone, as he always did during the missions they ran together, the one suggesting that there’s no room for emotions. “Then contact me. You know how.”

He disconnected. Natasha pulled over to the emergency lane, pried her sim card free, broke it in half and threw it out of the window, then, after a minute consideration, she threw the device as well. The phone serial number was in the database and it will get flagged the moment she turns it back on, even with a new sim card.

She rolled the window back up, took a deep breath and merged back into traffic.

She ran out of time.

\---

She took the next exit and turned around. There was no point in going back to New York. If SHIELD was on her trail, they’ll indubitably wait for her there.

A small, dinky motel on the outskirts of Indianapolis was where she stopped for the night. She sat on the single queen bed in the cramped room for long minutes before she pulled out her new phone and called Clint’s home number. The signal modulated and changed as the call was redirected, then sounded a few more times before it went away, replaced by silence overshot with static.

“Hi, Clint,” she said.

“What the fuck, Nat? Whe…” he stopped himself from finishing the sentence. He knew just as well as she did that revealing such information over an insecure line was an idiocy and none of them would stoop so low. His breath rustled in the headset. “There’s a flag on you and an internal warrant to bring you in the moment you return,” he said plainly. “Something about a crime scene in Ohio.”

“Mhm.”

“Tell me it’s just some massive misunderstanding.”

“I was there. I wasn’t careful, I got shot and had to scram.”

“Tell me you have a perfectly valid explanation for that.”

“I don’t.” Not one he would accept, at least.

“You have to come in. I’ll help you make it right. We will convince Fury together, tell him it’s just PTSD – or whatever – making you act up. They will set you up with a battalion of shrinks and you’ll be off the hook before you know it.”

“No. I won’t. I’m sorry, but I won’t do it.”

“It’s still about Loki, isn’t it?”

“Yes. Kind of. Not entirely, not anymore, but yes, he is in the center of it.”

“What are you trying to do?”

“I’m going to track him down and help him escape.”

There was a pause as Clint panted into the microphone, controlling an outburst that threated its way out. “Why?”

“Because he is my _friend_ , Clint,” she grounded through clenched teeth. “Because he was forced to attack us by a big, bad space alien who apparently goes with a ‘Mad’ in his nickname, who is still out there and just as much of a threat as he was before, and – no matter how much Loki suffers at our hands – that’s not going to change. Because I already told Fury and he disregarded everything I said, too concerned with saving his warm seat to worry about one person getting hurt. Because the World Council has their grabby hands all over Loki and they are in the process of torturing him as we speak and I can’t allow that to continue. Because I stood aside and did nothing for way too long and now it’s time to act. Because there’s no one else willing to help him and it has to be me!”

“You make no sense.”

“I make all the sense in the world and you’d see it if you could look at the world past the tip of your nose for five minutes instead of fondling your hate and anger all the time.”

“Nat, please…”

“No. I’m sorry Clint, but I’m not going to play along. It’s too late for that. I’m not going to lie to you, pretend everything is fine. It’s not! If you can’t accept that for what it is, then this is a goodbye.”

There was another pause. “You can’t expect me to believe all that.”

“I don’t expect anything. I’m going to do what I have to do and I’m not letting you, Fury, his little band of heroes, SHIELD, the Council or whoever else is pulling the strings to stop me.”

“You’re serious about that.”

“The hell I am.”

“Then there’s nothing left for us to tell one another,” he said numbly.

She hesitated. “There’s one more thing. A warning. There’s a force acting inside SHIELD and the Council. Other agencies too, presumably. I don’t know yet how deep it runs or what the endgame is, but… Do not let this catch you unprepared. Be wary of who you trust, be careful of who you talk to and what about. Just… be careful, okay?”

“Nat…”

She hung up, pulled the sim card free and tossed it into the trash bin. Then she sat on the bed, staring at the flowery curtains until it got too dark to see at all.

This tie was the hardest of them all to sever, but there was no other way.

\---

“You’re getting the files?”

“Yes,” Hanima said. “It’s goes at a nosebleed speed, because the upload rate is atrocious.”

“I’ll make sure to leave an official complaint on Starbuck’s fan page about that.”

Hanima sighed.

“Were you able to identify the people we saw on the camera feed?” Natasha asked.

“I tried. I got the best crops I could, then cross-referenced it with every database I could access. SHIELD, FBI, CIA, NSA, bank data, DMV, you name it. And nothing. Zilch. Nada. It’s like they never existed.”

“I didn’t expect much, to be honest. What about the names Dr Mengele provided?”

“Dr Maxwell Sparks apparently worked in DC SHIELD RnD division, until a few months ago when he got transferred somewhere and the records got purged. Since then, no trace. The rest apparently doesn’t exist, so those were either aliases or SHIELD is too good at protecting their agents’ identities.”

Natasha murmured noncommittally, because both were equally probable. “So, is there anything useful in the files we got?”

“No idea. The transfer’s still going and the files are encrypted, it’ll take time to crack the encryption.”

“How long?”

“Again, no idea. I have a hint of what kind of scrambling they could be using, based on their network structure, but I’m still on the ‘verifying the hypothesis’ phrase with that. But it can be done, in a couple of days. A few weeks, tops.”

“A few weeks,” Natasha repeated. “That’s… longer than I expected.”

“I don’t know what to tell you, the hardware I have access to took a long time to get under my circumstances as-is and something tells me this is not the kind of data that are safely sent outside. You said it yourself, we don’t know who to trust.”

“Yeah,” Natasha sighed.

“I’m sorry. I know you want to help him… help all those people, as soon as possible. I promise, I’ll get to you the moment I find anything that might look even remotely usable, but for now there’s nothing neither of us can do to speed this up.”

“Thanks, Hani.”

“Don’t mention it. No, seriously, don’t. I’m deep enough in this shit as it is.”

\---

“I got myself a book. Yep, really. Who’s a nerd now?” Natasha said and aimed the camera at the cover. “Norse Myths Illustrated” it read, just above a picture of a dragon fighting some Vikings on a boat. “Did you know that some of the names of the days of the week come from the Norse pantheon? Who am I kidding, I’m sure you did. Well, I didn’t. That explains why I never much liked Wednesdays. Can’t make up my mind about Thursdays though.

“You’ve been shafted, big time, by not getting your own. Thunder boy got one, papa sadist got one, but you did not. So, I’ll pick one for you. It might not catch on, but we could still have it, between the two of us.

“I would go for the weekend, but those are boring. Nothing ever happens on weekends, good or bad. We can’t have that. That left me with Monday, since everything else was taken and it made me feel bad, since, you know, people hate Mondays, and you deserve better.

“The thing is… why should we care about what people think? They don’t know what we know. And I don’t hate Mondays. It’s the beginning of the week. And beginnings are much better than endings. It’s a start of something new, something you haven’t experienced yet. It can be scary, but there’s hope in that, too. Kind of like you.

“So, yeah, Monday it is. I hope you like it because I’m not changing it now.”

\---

Days passed and the call from Hanima did not come. Natasha checked the news and other sources still available to her, but found nothing that could suggest Hanima was compromised. And, if she wasn’t, it was too much risk to contact her directly, so all Natasha could do was sit and wait. Hanima promised and Natasha knew her well enough that if she didn’t call, it meant she either couldn’t or she didn’t find anything yet.

She did not sit on her ass, doing nothing, far from it. She started reaching out the moment she arrived in California. Old sources and contacts, data fences, the crafty salesmen of equipment that disappeared off governmental trucks, forgers, crooks with ties to mob or local gangs. The kind of folk who fell trough the cracks and now thrived on the underbelly of the society. It was a dance to a familiar melody, even it’s been a while since she last heard it.

She filled her days with busy work, talking, negotiating, gathering favors.

At nights, she sat on the floor of the small, one room flat with a single window facing highway overpass and exercised her magic.

Her explorations of powers around were going abysmally. She could sense them all right, the most obvious kinds at least: static and kinetic energy, gravity, the electricity in the wires and the magnetic fields in the air. But those seemed… incompatible, somehow, thrumming in a different rhythm than the one that swirled in her core and she could find no way to break the interference, to draw from it, to convert it to a more familiar form, to make it usable. And she still couldn’t reach – or even sense – the strands of cosmic powers Loki spoke about. He told her she would need someone to guide her to find it, someone to show her how it’s done, but she hoped that, in time, she could perhaps be able to do it on her own, at least feel something _there_. But, no matter how much she focused and how hard she tried, she had no luck with that so far.

Fortunately, connecting to living minds did not require powerful sources and she could progress further there. She drilled herself into keeping the expanded awareness of her surroundings at the edge of consciousness at all times, ready to be reached at will, without extra preparations. She did slip and lost her focus, time after time, but the longer she trained, the more natural it became.

She also spent time on meditation and exploring her core, poking at it from different angles, fiddling, pulling, observing how it reacted to her wishes and wants and fears. In there she found strands. Traces. The leftover of her connection with Marcus still hurt like a fresh scar, sitting there uncomfortably, evoking the traumatic recollections from within his mind. Right next to it sat a mark of her connection to the creature, burned deeply into her psyche with the amount of energy it transferred. Then there were whisps of little contacts she made along the way, the memories of brief encounters and handshakes, fading in the background.

Then, underneath it all were the vestiges of the link she shared with Loki. It felt different than all the others and she wasn’t sure if it was because of the consensual nature of it, or because Loki’s mind didn’t work quite like any other and the link altered because of it. It was brittle and delicate and she was anxious to even put it under scrutiny, fearing the barest graze could break it somehow. She wanted to hold onto it, its warm presence serving as a proof that what they shared wasn’t just a vivid dream but something that truly happened.

After basking in it being there for a while, after she made sure it stays when she focuses on it, she grew bolder. It was there and if she could awaken it somehow… Perhaps there was a way to reestablish the connection, just for a brief moment. She balked at the notion at first, but the longer she considered it, the less irresponsible it sounded. A couple of seconds should be quick enough to fly under Odin’s spell radar and still provide invaluable help, a lead, an idea to where Loki was kept. It was a risk, but a risk that might be worth taking, and it was looking more and more alluring, in a desperate way, as more and more options were exhausted without coming to fruition.

So, one of those nights, she sat down, closed her eyes and focused on the trace, sending a pulse of bright energy. The path lit up and she tugged to grab onto it, drag her mind along and to the other side. Her focus slipped and it faded, without creating a connection. It was still just a mark on the map of her brain and not a true road that she could follow.

She tried again, and again, until she grew exhausted and her head started to throb dully.

She tried every night after that.

\---

It was the end of October when Hanima’s phone finally called.

“Tell me you found something,” Natasha said, just as she picked up the phone, not even waiting for Hanima to start talking. She was the only one who had that number.

“Natasha, right?” the voice on the other side said.

“Uhm, Sarah? Is that you?”

“Yes.”

“Why are you calling me? Where’s Hanima?”

There was silence on the other end for a long while, then a soft sob, and Sarah spoke again, her voice teary and shaken, “I was going to ask you the same thing.”

\---

Hanima’s been gone for more than two weeks. One day she jumped into a car to go to the grocery store and never returned. The police simply threw their arms up. There were no witnesses, no physical evidence, no motive, not a hint of struggle. The recordings from street cameras in the neighborhood were useless as well. She popped on one feed, driving by like it’s any other day and then nothing on the next that she should have passed two minutes later. No one noticed anything suspicious. One moment she was there and the other – poof – gone, like she never existed.

“They said she couldn’t take the pressure of being a parent and ran away. That happens all the time, apparently,” Sarah said. “But she would never do that.”

“She wouldn’t. I’m sorry,” Natasha said. She was. “But why did you call me?”

“Don’t pretend like you don’t know. It must have something to do with you. She was out, really _out_ , until you dragged her back in. And suddenly she was spending her every waking hour in the basement again, looking over her shoulder again, hiding things from me again” After that initial outburst, Sarah’s voice was rough, but indifferent, seemingly devoid of emotion. Natasha would prefer to be screamed at over this. “It is your fault and you know it.”

Natasha bit down the repartee. The one about Hanima being an adult and knowing what she signed up for. It wasn’t true. It _was_ Natasha’s fault and she knew it.

“I’m sorry,” she said again.

“I’m not calling to hear your empty platitudes.”

“Then why are you calling me?”

“It’s your fault.”

“You said that already.”

“You have to fix this. You have to find her.”

“I…” she paused and took a deep breath. “I don’t know how. I don’t know why they took her. Hell, I don’t even know who! Hanima was helping me to research a case, but she stopped talking before… I have no idea what it is that she found that put her in danger.”

“That’s another reason why I’m calling you.”

Natasha’s heart skipped a beat. “Go on.”

“Hanima might not have trusted me with everything she did, yet she trusted me with being her destruction switch.”

“She did?”

“In case something happened, if she was arrested or…” Sarah paused and turned away from the headset, yet Natasha could still hear the muffled sniffle. “I was to come down here and destroy everything. Erase every drive, destroy every memory card, then run a program she wrote that would fry the hardware.”

“Did you do it?”

“I stalled. For days, now. But I can’t keep on putting it back anymore. So, it’s today. I came down here for the first time and… Everything is destroyed. Everything besides this phone that has only one number in it and the main computer. And I’m looking at it, now.”

Natasha kept silent, waiting for the woman on the other end to continue.

“Everything seems to be gone here as well. The main drive is almost empty, the others don’t even show up, so they must be fried.”

“So… There’s nothing.” Natasha said and pressed her fingers to her eyes. It was all for naught. And now Hanima was gone. Another red bullet point in her ledger.

“There is one file. Right in the middle of the desktop, so she wanted me to see it. It’s a text file, with your name as the title.”

“Don’t open it! No matter what it is, you’re better off not knowing. I’ll set up a secure e-mail, I’ll tell you how to send it to me. But please, do not make yourself a target!”

“Too late,” Sarah said. “I already opened it. And there’s no need to send it. It’s just five signs. SK dash twelve.”

“That’s it?”

“Yes.”

“There’s anything else in that file?”

“No.”

“Perhaps if you scrolled down, or…”

“I checked. There’s nothing hidden in it. Nothing in metadata. It’s not converted from any other filetype. It doesn’t lead to any other file in the system. It’s a five byte text file with five symbols in it. That’s it.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. Do you know what it means?”

Natasha scratched her nose. “I have no idea.”

\---

Hanima thought that was important. Important enough to risk leaving it for Natasha, even if she knew there were people on her tail. The problem was that Natasha truly had no idea what it could signify. A codename for a project or mission? A location? A unit designation? Some initials?

Did Hanima know the meaning or was it just something that she judged important from context?

Natasha googled it first. There was a World War Two German plane model of that name and she studied the photos and technical description for minutes before deciding that’s either not it or she is not smart enough to figure it out for now. Then some kind of safety knife, some water pump, a gun from a video game and then a multitude of other products with the string of symbols somewhere in their name or serial number.

Then she turned to the dark web and it proved just as inconclusive.

A few hours later she was ready to admit defeat.

If she could only access SHIELD’s database, if it was something connected to the military or agency operations it would be there, at least mentioned…

Well, she could try. There was a decent chance her credentials still worked. It was standard procedure for luring out rogue agents. Leave the access on, then flag and trace every login. It even might not lock her out immediately, giving them more time to get to her. She could still get some intel out of it, if she played it right.

Using her laptop right here in her apartment slash hidey hole was out of the question. She already needed to toss her old device and she used some ancient machine she grabbed in a pawn shop. She really wanted to avoid getting another one, even if the IP address wasn’t enough of an issue. She would use routing, of course, but they would trace her anyway, sooner or later. No, she needed to get as far away as possible before making an attempt.

\---

The mall was located on the other side of the city and was a busy place with a lot of visitors at all times of the day, which made it just perfect.

She parked on the street, two blocks away, making sure no city camera covered the place. If it came to a stand-off, the underground garage exits could be blocked too easily, trapping her inside. Plus they would indubitably check security recordings and she didn’t feel like getting yet another car.

She checked her disguise in the shop window. The long blonde wig she got in a second hand shop (along with a long, pink dress and awful yellow pumps to throw the seller off her scent and make the purchase seem like early Halloween shopping) smelled of moth killer formula with a hint of lavender, which could be one and the same thing. Along with a cheap-looking two-piece it made her look like low level office assistant on a lunch break. It would be better with some obnoxious stiletto heels a woman of her height would wear in an office environment, but she wasn’t going to trade comfort in case she needed to dash for that extra bit of credibility. 

She picked a small electronics store on the ground floor, right past the main entrance. Something bigger and more crowded would be better, but the only other candidate was an iStore, located on the mezzanine, and the exit routes looked poorly, with only one escalator leading down and the access to staircases secured with fire doors. As in, the kind that stayed close unless a fire alarm has sounded. That was an option, true, but not the best one.

She strolled through the store for a few minutes, eyeing a couple of different laptops on display. There was only one other customer by the smartphone showcase and two clerks, one sitting behind the counter, engrossed with a book, the other eyeing her and the other guy in the store with mild disinterest.

“Excuse me,” the guy by the phone display said and waved at the clerk, “can someone help me here?”

The sales assistant went over and stroke a conversation with the customer and she used the chance. She picked the cheapest model on display, one that would look within the price range her current disguise could afford, thus avoiding unnecessary suspicions.

Her credentials worked, just as she hoped they would. SHIELD could be too predictable sometimes.

There were five direct hits then a couple of partials. The first was a mission from late nineties, with that codename assigned. She skimmed through the brief. Dehli, gun deal gone wrong, resulting in a hostage situation. Suspicion that weapons of an unknown origin were used, unconfirmed. She ran through the list of casualties and agents involved, but nothing obviously connected to what she was looking for caught her attention.

The second one was a part of a license plate from a kidnapping in Melbourne. The perps were never caught and the victim’s body was located in a lake two weeks later. One of the witnesses said they saw one of the perps hover in the air. Confirmed false, the witness was just a junkie. 

She moved onto the third result and the page hung on loading, then gave her an error. “Come on,” she muttered under her breath.

“Yeah, we have famously shitty wi-fi for an electronics company,” said the second salesman, now standing behind her. Her back was turned and didn’t see him coming over.

She brought forth a bright smile. “Well, it will be just perfect testing environment for me then,” she said.

“Try refreshing the page,” the clerk suggested and she pushed the key, hoping it wouldn’t work this time either. It worked, because of course it did. “Oh, what’s that?” the guy said and peeked over her shoulder.

“Work e-email. I’m waiting for an important message. Might get some work done just as well if I’m hanging out in the mall during workhours, right?” she laughed and turned, subtly, enough to obscure the view of the screen.

The clerk stepped around her and peered at the monitor again. “Ugh, that’s gross.”

The screen showed a photo from a plane crash in the Ural. One of the SK-12 planes, crashed in the sixties, the report said, found fifty years later. Coroner eval judged the times of death of the pilot and two passengers at twelve hours prior.

“Tommy!” the first clerk called. “Can you get me one of those but in red from the storage?”

Tommy grunted. “Sure,” he yelled back. “If you excuse me…”

“Sure,” Natasha said and smiled, then returned to the report.

Before she got further than two sentences in, there was a dark blur in the corner of her eye. She looked up, careful not to make her moves too rapt. A black SUV just came to a screeching halt on the other side of the glass door, right by main entrance, and two agents stepped out. Damn, they were quicker than she expected.

She didn’t bother with closing the page or wiping the history. There was no point, they had the record of her search and they knew she was here anyway. She turned and left, disregarding the sideway glance the clerk sent her way.

She was halfway through the venue before she spotted another pair of agents. Those were being a bit more inconspicuous, wearing civilian clothes and walking a bit less like trained soldiers, but still obvious enough. She pulled out her phone and started typing, keeping her head down until they passed, then she turned into a side alley leading to lavatories. A “staff only” door down the hallway had a keypad next to it, but the mag-lock was broken and the door was cracked open. She dove through and pushed it close behind herself.

There was a staff room a bit down the service hallway, currently empty. She grabbed a high visibility vest from one of the lockers and picked a pad with some papers clipped to it.

It was a widespread joke by that point, not only between the intelligence agents, but within the general society as well: a high visibility vest can get you anywhere if you act confidently enough. But damn it if it wasn’t true. She passed multiple staff members on her way out and nobody even graced her with more than a cursory glance. It would be even better with a hardhat.

She opened the evacuation door leading to the supply zone. There were a couple of warehouse workers outside, unhurriedly rolling the hand pallet trucks and moving boxes. No agents. They didn’t expect her to come out this way. She saved rejoicing about the fact for another time.

The wig landed in the thrash bin in the back alley, the vest followed. She took off the jacket and put on shades. A few more dark vans passed her as she walked down the street but no one bothered her until she reached the car.


	40. Settle in

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which hope rises just to get squished immediately. Then it gets worse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A fair warning: one of the most hardcore warnings from the tags occurs in this chapter.

Empty cup flew through the room and crashed on the wall, adding another stain to the ancient wallpaper.

It didn’t do much to scratch the itch to scream, to tear something down, to destroy. She clapped down on the couch, gripping her thighs to stop herself from throwing another item at the wall. The only thing within her reach was her phone and she still needed it.

_Fuck!_

She looked at the screen and reread the message, the last of the contacts she got in touch with informing her that they dug up nothing solid about the mysterious cryptonym.

There was nothing left. Loki was gone. The safety net of SHIELD protection no longer existed. Clint was her enemy. Hanima got snatched and might not even be alive anymore. And now the only scrap of information she was able to get in all those weeks turned out to be a dud, too.

Her laptop pinged a new alert, then her phone did too, a second later. Then again. And again.

She looked at the notifications popping up, as one after another official databases updated with her wanted notice and arrest warrant, naming her an enemy of the state, armed and dangerous. She stared at the screen numbly.

It wasn’t like she didn’t expect that to happen, sooner or later. It was inevitable. Yet seeing it finally come through was a blow. It was real. There was no going back.

 _You knew that already, Natasha_ , she told herself. _You knew there’s no going back to your old life. You knew that the moment…_

She wasn’t sure when it was, exactly. Was it the moment she kissed him? Or was it even earlier, when she heard Loki laugh for the first time?

She pulled up her legs and closed her eyes. The trace of their connection floated to the foreground of her consciousness almost on an instinct now, its faint gleam warming up her insides, scattering her doubt, calming her nerves, blowing the frustration away. It was still there and so was hope.

\---

Days bled into weeks, and weeks into months and, despite all odds, she fell into a routine.

She didn’t stay in one place for long, swapping cars, spending nights in motels and seedy Airbnbs. As tempting as leaving the country might sound in her situation, she stayed. SHIELD was in the heart of this and – despite their activity spanning all across the globe under international treaties and World Security Council overview – they were based in US, which meant finding a way back inside would be easier here.

It would be easier, but it didn’t mean it was easy.

Her initial contacts led to more contacts. Ex-agents turned mercenaries, deflectors, double spies who didn’t really care who they sold the information to as long as the money changed hands. Intelligence was an asset and it had its worth, and money was money and it smelled the same at the end of the day, no matter when that came from. And the kind she looked for was the priciest of them all.

She had some resources, but that pool was not infinite and she could see the bottom from where she stood. So she started running jobs. Smaller, low profile side activities at first, but soon bigger offers came. Her name still meant something in the right circles and her reputation preceded her now just as much as it used to before, even if the context now changed.

She wasn’t fooling herself she was making allies. Her new paymasters were ought to be as willing to collaborate with her enemies if the offer was right. So she never disclosed her main objective, gathering small bits and pieces of intel like a paranoid magpie.

They were frustratingly scarce.

Hydra had people everywhere, including the criminal half-world, it seemed.

She had a thievery job gone sideways because someone remotely activated the security system, bringing law enforcement and forcing her to flee the scene within an inch of capture, even though she checked and rechecked the site beforehand and her plan was solid. A bodyguard gig ended in a disaster when her client was shot with a high caliber, military grade sniper riffle projectile, through two layers of reinforced glass. It would be her if she didn’t dive out of the way at the last possible moment. She had potential contacts set up meetings and not show up, never to be heard from again.

She could never be sure that it wasn’t a coincidence. There was never any evidence, but she felt their eyes raising the fine hair on her neck all the same. She was asking too many questions and made herself a nuisance.

There was a consolation in that – if she got this kind of attention, it meant she ruffled the right feathers. She was moving forward, even if it was a slow march.

The end line was set and she was getting there. She just hoped it won’t be too late.

\---

A smack across his cheek knocked Loki out of the stupor.

The machine was turned off, for a good while now. Perhaps days, even. The cooling was off too, but no new forms of torment were brought in to replace it yet and Loki was left alone, adrift in the dark, able to fall asleep without immediately being jerked back awake by Odin’s magic, and to think, and nothing hurt as long as he didn’t try to move. It was a bliss.

“I asked you a question,” a voice hissed and its owner slapped him again.

It was nothing compared to what the spell or even the electric current could do, so Loki disregarded it. He didn’t register the question anyway. He promised himself to pay more attention from now on.

“Are you ready to talk? Or do you want me to turn the cooling on again?”

 _Oh_. That would be… unwelcome. But there was nothing Loki could do about it, was there?

A hand grabbed his neck, fingers digging into his ailing flesh and only then Loki realized the manacle around his throat was off. He didn’t remember it being removed. He jerked his arm to check if those were gone too and was rewarded with a sharp ache shooting up his nerves. They were not.

“Well?”

Loki shook his head, slowly and cautiously, but the movement still hurt, the tendons in his neck protesting every bit of the way, mortal’s fingers rubbing against his sore skin. He wasn’t even sure which question he was answering. Again, it didn’t matter.

It was just another trap. They ordered him to talk, but they knew he couldn’t. They just wanted another excuse to punish him and make him think it was his fault.

He didn’t need that. He knew that already.

“Let’s see about that,” the mortal snarled. “Boys?”

The cuffs on his wrists and ankles clicked open then and there were more hands on him, grabbing him and pulling him up. The layer of cloth on his back, where his body was touching the freezing metal of the table for what must be months now, peeled off the frostbitten flesh, opening new wounds. Loki stole a hiss through the slits of the gag, but managed to stop himself from crying out. It was so much easier to control his reaction with his mind back inside his skull.

He couldn’t keep his head up and didn’t even think about trying to stand up on his own, lest struggle, just allowing them to drag him wherever it was they were taking him to. He savored the moment. He was outside of his cell, outside of what he was convinced was going to be his final resting place, sooner or later. The air in the corridor seemed fresh in comparison and the harsh chemical smell was not as pronounced. It felt good in his lungs and taking it in full, unrestricted gasps for a moment cleared his mind and made him dread what was to follow a bit less.

The room they took him to wasn’t far away.

“Set him down in the chair,” sounded another voice, one that Loki didn’t recognize. It didn’t say much, of course, but the tone was different to the one they usually used around him, so it made Loki suspect it was someone new, someone who not yet knew how things were done in this place.

They sat him down. They didn’t even push him or jabbed their fists into his ribs before removing their hands, as was their custom.

“We will take it from here,” the same voice added. “You can wait outside.”

The guards murmured in affirmation and followed the order, their feet shuffling out of the room.

Someone important then.

“Sergeant?” the voice prompted and there were new hands on him, binding him where he sat. Whoever this new gaoler was, they was uncharacteristically measured in their actions; the straps were tightened just enough to hold him in place and not much beyond that, even allowing Loki some leeway to shift and find a position that wasn’t a torture on its own.

His right wrist was left unattached to the armrest for a moment, then there was a ratchet of handcuffs as the bracelet clasped shut around it. Loki wiggled his hand and tried out the new range of movement and got his arm up halfway through to his face before he ran out of the attached chain’s give. The guard stepped away without punishing him for exploiting the opportunity.

It seemed like they truly intended to allow him to answer their questions this time.

“I’m sorry that this is the way we have to do it,” the man said and there was something that sounded like true concern in his tone. “I hope you understand why this is necessary?”

Loki didn’t answer. Both because he knew that his response did not matter and that it wasn’t.

“Allow me to…” the voice sounded closer this time and the man reached behind Loki’s head, untied the knot and pulled cloth away from his eyes. The room was dimly lit, letting him slowly adjust to the light.

“Better?” the man asked and Loki just stared at him. He was older than the timbre of his voice would suggest, spreading an aura of flawless presentation, with the thick thatch of fair hair combed perfectly even and with well-fitted, light gray suit that went well both with the color of his tie and his eyes. Definitely someone important. Someone in power.

The man noticed Loki’s stare and smiled amiably. “I’ve been told you’re not to be underestimated and now I can see why.”

Loki crooked his head.

“You must be wondering who I am,” he said. He wasn’t asking so Loki felt even less inclined to deigning it with an answer. “But it’s not important. What you must know is that I’m the person who can make your life a lot easier.”

The man turned away and grabbed a small rolling side table from the corner of the room, pushing it into Loki’s hand reach. There was a notepad and a pencil on it.

“We can start small,” the man continued, picking up the pencil and holding it up. He ran his perfectly manicured fingernails along its length. “No more cold, no more drugs, fresh air.”

Loki’s fingers furled around the armrests.

“A cell with a window?” the human droned. “Entertainment? Books? You look like the type.” He smiled knowingly. “And, if our cooperation goes well… Who knows? If you prove you can be trusted with it, perhaps even freedom, in time.”

Loki narrowed his eyes.

“All you have to do is answer a few questions.” With that he pushed the pencil into Loki’s fingers then tapped the notebook. “We can start nice and easy. Why did you attack Earth?”

Loki looked down at his hand, his pasty skin covered in cuts and bruises, the frayed edge of the rags he was forced to wear, the weeping wound around his wrist where the manacle froze his flesh, over and over, his bloody, broken fingernails and bony digits holding the pencil.

“You can use your language,” the mortal encouraged. “We have tools to translate it now, thanks to the old texts your people left behind and the samples you and your brother so kindly provided.”

Loki had nothing to lose. There was nothing stopping him from telling the man the truth. Revealing his shame and defeat at the hand of The Mad Titan couldn’t make his standing lower than it already was, for there wasn’t any further he could fall. And if that could make the pain stop…

He pulled the notebook closer.

Mortal’s smile turned a degree warmer and he gave Loki an encouraging nod.

Loki pressed the pencil to the spotless page and squeezed his fingers tighter around it, to keep his hand from shaking.

 _FUCK YOU_ , he wrote.

The mortal studied the page, smacked his lips and shook his head with discontent. “I thought you’re smarter than this,” he said and sighed. He pushed his hands into his pockets and stepped away. “Well, I tried to play it nice... Guards!”

The door opened and four soldiers flocked inside, lead by Dreadlocks. He was the worst of them all and Loki learned to recognize him even by his footsteps.

“Take the prisoner back to his cell,” he ordered, “and make sure he reflects on his mistake.”

\---

“You told me once you don’t know your real birthdate. Well, I never got the opportunity to tell you that I don’t know mine either. The official day of birth in my papers is most likely fake, just like the year or my last name. I never bothered to look for the real one, if it could ever be found. You know why? Because it changes absolutely nothing. We are taught to give significance to those dates, like they mean something. It’s just a day, like any other. Unless you count being a day closer to death a great occasion to celebrate.

“The same with other days the culture claims are significant. Take New Year’s Eve for example. We celebrate another time our planet made another full circle around the sun. But it’s not like the circle started on the first of January, it’s just another authoritarian date we agreed means something while in truth it signifies absolutely nothing.

“Okay, I might be a bit bitter today. Cause, look at me. Here I am, sitting alone in some basement, talking to my phone again. I’m trying to focus on what’s important, on finding my way. I just…”

Her voice grew unsteady and she took a deep breath before she continued. “So, yeah, happy New Year, I suppose.”

She stopped the recording. The screen of her phone turned dark, then flashed back on and displayed an animation of fireworks as the clock jumped from 23:59 to 0:00. There were faint popping sounds in the background too, neighborhood kids blowing their allowance on sparky things that went boom.

She brough up her palm and closed her eyes and when she opened them again there was a small spark of light, hovering an inch above her palm, glimmering pale green.

\---

They didn’t wait as long before they tried interrogating Loki again. The boss wasn’t there this time, just some agents, but they still had the same empty promises for him and started with the exact same question. Loki didn’t bother with writing, just flipped them off.

He was really fond of the gesture, seemingly so small yet conveying so much meaning. Someone should steal it and make it popular in Asgard. They didn’t have problem with taking whatever they wanted from other cultures, after all.

They punished him for his obstinance by suspending him by his wrists above a metal plate. Each time his toes touched the surface the circuit closed, sending electricity through his body, leaving it for him to choose between the strain in his shoulders and arms that soon became hard to endure and the pain of electrocution and by the end, a few days later, he still couldn’t pick the favorite.

At least the wounds on his back got a chance to scab over and start healing. It made the next prolonged session with the freezer a bit more bearable.

\---

Loki caught up to the pattern quickly. A couple days of elaborate tortures, a short period of respite to allow his mind to return to its rightful place, then questions. He wondered why they went that particular route. Dangling the promise of stopping the pain as it was happening would make it a lot more difficult for him to say no. But perhaps that wasn’t the priority. They wanted his suffering to go on undisturbed and whatever information they could squeeze out in the process would be the additional value.

He wasn’t going to give them that satisfaction.

No matter how inventive their approach to breaking him got, the cold was still the worst. They were using his own dominion against him in a way that he would never conceived possible. Even the Other, with all his creative methods, never figured that out.

Besides, it was pointless. He was already broken, before they even laid their eyes on him.

\---

“You have to find another way,” the mortal healer said ( _they are called ‘medicine doctors’,_ Loki reminded himself), prodding his gloved finger into a sore on Loki’s back. “At least for now. Let him recover a bit.”

Loki could feel the fever burning his insides, overwhelming the cold that numbed his skin. It’s been going on for a while now.

They were talking as if he couldn’t hear them, but that was nothing new. They fact that they called somebody to look at his injuries was. Perhaps it got so bad that they noticed and were afraid he might die before they were done with him. They arranged someone to come over and fix their favorite plaything.

“We should consider moving the subject to the infirmary wing, at least until the infection cleans. We might try some antibiotics, see if that would work on him…”

“That’s out of the question,” Dreadlocks’ voice said. “Can’t you give him something to fix it right now?”

“I’m not a miracle worker, Rubis! We still don’t know what works and what doesn’t work on his physiology. If Strucker allowed us the access earlier, like we requested, we wouldn’t be grasping at straws now! If you leave it like this he will die!”

_Yes, please._

Dreadlocks – whose name was Rubis, apparently – snarled something in a language Loki couldn’t name but heard enough times already. Most of the guards spoke it between themselves, switching to English when their bosses were around. Loki tried learning it, but it was hard without knowing the context or even seeing their faces, so he got only a couple of words so far. The doctor responded alike. They argued, back and forth, until it turned into a shouting match. Loki found himself cheering for the doctor, not even sure why. He was trying to mend him just so his colleagues could continue to break him apart.

In the end, the doctor was allowed to cut away Loki’s clothes, clean the oozing sores and inject something into the port in his chest. Then they dragged his limp body to a different cell and bound his elbows, knees and calves – his wrists and ankles needed to heal as well – then left him on the floor.

The blindfold was still over his eyes but he didn’t bother with trying to slip it off. He just curled up on the ground, right where they left him, pressed his burning up forehead to the cold concrete and let his own fluttery heartbeat lull him to sleep.

\---

The doctor visited a while later, perhaps the next day, or the one after. Loki was lying flat on his stomach with his cheek pressed onto the floor, as it was the most comfortable position he could find. He did manage to get the blindfold off in the end, so he was able to see the source of the ruckus just as the door opened. The doctor was bringing the damned machine in. Loki rolled to his side and made an attempt at groveling away and into a corner, as far as possible from the apparatus. It was pointless of course, if it was decided, then it was decided and there was nothing he could do about it, but buying himself even a few heartbeats of clear mind was worth it.

“Hey, it’s okay,” the doctor said, noticing his panic, or maybe just guessing the reason of his behavior correctly, “no happy drugs for now. Just fluids and some nutritional formula. You need energy to heal. Okay?”

Loki stared. His opinion on the matter wouldn’t matter in the slightest and he wasn’t going to make it easier for the man by complying.

The doctor stayed in place, seemingly still awaiting his approval.

Loki yielded and nodded.

The mortal started with cutting the plastic ties that bound his legs and arms, then examined his wounds.

“You seem to be healing all right,” he said, “just a couple more days and…” He sighed, then reached for his bag. “I brough you some fresh clothes to wear, it should be fine if you don’t move around too much.”

Loki glowered at him.

“Right…” he muttered.

He allowed Loki to put on the clothes on his own. It took a good while. Only then he connected the machine to the tube in Loki’s chest and powered it on. He turned to leave, stopped before he reached the door, and looked back at Loki where he was still sitting on the floor, with what must be an extremely confused expression on his face.

“I’m not going to tie you up. Just don’t do anything stupid, all right?”

Loki nodded.

The doctor took his leave. He even left the light on.

Loki waited a few heartbeats, snapped a piece of the plastic cover that protected the roller the machine sat on and stabbed it into his wrist, as deep as it would go. Then again. And again.

\---

The guards stormed into the cell not long after, even before Loki lost consciousness, the doctor close at their heels.

He wrapped Loki’s wrists in bandages and the guards wrung his arms behind his back then snapped shackles on them, each connected with a short chain to a bolt in the floor. They replaced the blindfold and left without a single word.

Loki lay there in the dark, his arms going numb already, thinking of only one thing. If he weren’t such a coward, he would have gone for the throat.

\---

After that incident they used the cold treatment a lot more sparingly. Of course, they tried different other methods, but nothing was as _convenient_ as having Loki’s own innate gift torment him. Loki knew they would find a way, in time. And it was a resource they had in abundance.

He wasn’t wrong.

The day it happened he sensed something was about to transpire. He was more alert than usually, which meant the last portion of the formula had a lower dosage of the drug and that in turn meant they needed him aware for something. It was too early for another round of interrogations, so it had to be something _else_.

The door shrieked and multiple footsteps poured into the cell. There was the rustle of the guards’ uniforms and shuffle of their heavy boots, but not exclusively, so it was a special occasion indeed.

“Take off his blindfold,” the boss ordered. It was the first time he was here since that inept questioning attempt, but Loki still recognized his voice.

Taught by his previous experiences, he closed his eyes even before the guards moved to follow the order. By now he knew the cloth was only there to further his torment, nothing else. They weren’t afraid of him recognizing them, they knew he was as defenseless as a newborn, with or without his eyesight. He wasn’t going to play along.

No one spoke. They were waiting for him to open his eyes, so whatever they were here to do, they wanted him to _see_. He entertained the idea of keeping his eyes screwed shut and waiting to find out what happens, until he heard a click of an electric baton being powered on and relented.

One of the guards grabbed his hair and pulled his head up.

There were at least a dozen people inside the cell. Some soldiers, standing on both sides of the table, the big boss by the foot of it, with two agents backing him up. Then, in the corner, a kid. Loki wasn’t an expert in judging mortals’ ages, but he would be around twenty if he was Æsir and up to around that point Æsir and human development matched pretty closely, so perhaps around fourteen or fifteen in Earth’s years? Loki studied him with curiosity and the kid lowered his gaze, abashed.

The kid wore similar nondescript garb to what Loki was forced to wear and there was a black collar around his throat. He was a prisoner here, just like Loki. Loki never met anyone but his jailers here and never really spared it a thought, but it made sense. They wouldn’t keep the entire facility running just for him, would they?

“We have something special for you today,” the boss said and waved his hand. One of the agents stepped forth and brought up the suitcase he was carrying, opened it, and presented the contents to the boss. From where he was lying Loki couldn’t see inside but he still squinted his eyes. “It should fit right in with the gift you received from your own people,” the mortal said and pulled up out the item. Loki’s brow furrowed. It was just a pair of shackles, made of some bright, shiny metal. It was plain and didn’t look like anything that could come from under the hammers of Æsir blacksmiths.

“It might not look like much, but the material is quite extraordinary,” the boss carried on with a smirk. “The strongest metal on Earth and – as I’ve been told – perfect for _enchantments_.”

Loki’s eyes went wide. What were they trying to do?

The boss inclined his head and one of the guards turned to the panel on the wall. The bands holding down Loki’s ankles released and the boss stepped forth and reached to remove them.

Before he could convince himself on the futility of the endeavor, Loki kicked and his heel connected with mortal’s face. The man reeled backwards as blood gushed from his nose. Loki didn’t get to see whether he came down or not, because that was the moment one of the guards pressed the baton to his throat and fired. His spine arched and he fought back the scream, unsuccessfully; Odin’s magic flared up and joined the symphony of pain sounding in his body. Then the world blinked off and there was only darkness.

\---

When he came to, the new, unfamiliar weigh was already clasped shut on his ankles and the bands were back, pulling the chain of the fetters taunt.

“Too bad you missed those going on,” the boss slurred. His nose was swollen, he had a split lip and blood stained his white shirt. “It was a one time event. You see, my RnD team is quite proud of those. The locks are designed so they can’t be opened once they are shut. There are no tools that can cut through vibranium, it can only be melted. And I imagine _that_ would be quite unpleasant to experience.”

Loki’s heart sunk. Then again, it didn’t matter, did it? He was stuck here until he dies. One more piece of metal locked on his body didn’t change anything.

Mortal’s face lit up at Loki’s despair. “But wait, there’s more,” he said and his voice was drenched in satisfaction. He turned to the kid and reached for his throat, removing the collar. “No stupid moves,” he warned, then pushed the kid forward, towards Loki. The kid stood there, his big, red-rimmed eyes shiny with tears, his lips quivering, his shaky hands hovering in the air above the shackles. He had handcuffs on his wrists.

“What are you waiting for?” the boss urged.

Loki met kid’s gaze and inclined his head ever so slightly. There was nothing either of them could do but play along. This was how things were here. For both of them, apparently.

The kid lowered his head and closed his eyes. Tears ran down his face and his fingertips touched the metal around Loki’s ankle and Loki could immediately feel it warming up with boy’s body heat. Then thin tendrils of power sneaked around kid’s hands, down his fingers, and seeped into the metal. Loki couldn’t sense the magic itself and the kid didn’t use any incantations, but – whatever it was – it must have been something minor if it didn’t rouse Odin’s spell yet.

The kid broke the connection and stumbled away, right into older mortal’s welcoming hands. The collar was clasped back around his throat – a measure to contain his powers, Loki supposed – and two guards grabbed his arms and led him out of the cell. He didn’t struggle, he didn’t even peel his eyes away from the floor. Loki watched him go with growing anxiety.

The boss laughed. “You don’t understand yet, do you? Well, let me explain.” He picked a pen out of his pocked and jabbed it into Loki’s hand.

A few things happened at once. The tip of the pen nicked his skin, drawing but a small droplet of blood. The protection spell the kid put on the shackles reacted and urged Loki’s magic to fight the injury. Odin’s magic activated, pushing back, locking his muscles in spasms and setting every nerve in Loki’s body on fire. A scream jutted forth from his throat, only adding another layer to the agony.

The boss waited for it to pass before he spoke again and Loki had to concentrate to catch his words over his own ragged breathing. “Now you get it, right? This is just a small precaution in case you got stupid ideas again.”

He turned to leave, his bodyguards rushing to open the door for him. He stopped at the threshold. “Have fun, guys,” he said and left.

Loki’s didn’t react as the guards closed in, eager to try out the new feature, his mind clouded with a grim realization. His last route of escape has been sealed shut.

\---

It was an uncharacteristically hot afternoon for March in Detroit when Sarah called. Natasha held on to the sim card and kept her in the spare slot, while she swapped her main number. She wasn’t even sure why, but it wasn’t burned for all she knew and…

“Hello?”

“They found her body,” Sarah said, “in the harbor.”

“I… I’m so sorry.”

“They said there was no signs of foul play.” Sarah’s voice was calm and collected. “She just drove her car into the bay and drowned.”

“You know that’s not…”

“I know. But it changes nothing. She is dead.”

_Because of me._

“How are you holding up?”

“Do not pretend that you care.”

“I do.”

“If you really did, you’d have kept away.”

“I’m…”

“You can say that you’re sorry till you’re blue in the face. It’s not going to change anything.”

“Then why are you even calling me?”

“I just… Whatever it is that you’re doing, Hanima thought it’s important enough to risk everything. She sacrificed her life for your cause. You needed to know that. Do not throw it away. You owe her as much.”

“I won’t.”

“Good. I won’t call you again, so you can just as well lose the number. Now, there’s…”

“No, wait!” Natasha interjected. “When’s the funeral?”

“No. Do not come.”

“Why? I’m not going to show up at your house, I just want to pay my respects at the service.”

“It’s not that, there…” Sarah hesitated, gathering her courage to speak. “There were people at our house. Soon after we last talked. They had NYPD badges, but I checked later and there are no officers with their names. They were asking about you, they had your photo. They know you were here, that you’re connected to Hanima. It’s too risky for you to come.”

“What did you tell them?”

“The truth. That I didn’t see you and that I don’t know who you are.”

“Thank you.”

“I didn’t do it for you.”

“Still.”

“Goodbye, Natasha.”

“Good…”

The call dropped. She threw the phone at the wall, missed and hit the window with a sound of shattering glass. Natasha didn’t need to check if it survived the fall, it was a fifth story flat. She still got up and put on her clothes. She needed a new phone.

\---

The clerk in the small electronics shop talked her into getting a refurbished Starkphone. It had a good camera, he said. It wasn’t as nice as the one Clint brought her, but would still do. She looked at Stark’s name etched into the bezel for a long while before she shrugged and stashed the device in her pocket.

\---

There was a memorial day on twelfth of May, one year anniversary of the attack. She lasted five minutes of Mayor Bloomberg’s speech about the power of unity and standing up to a common enemy before she felt sick and changed the channel.

\---

At the end of May she got a mission to smuggle a subject across the border to Canada. She didn’t think much of it at first. It was an objective like any other, referred to her by a contact that never failed before and the pay was good.

Then red flags started popping up. Background check on the payer came up blank. Not clean, blank. It wasn’t common, not even in that field. Sure, people didn’t use their real names, she didn’t do that for a while either, but they still kept consistent identities, because you can’t stay in the business without a name. Yet there was nothing.

Then the customer vehemently refused any third party participants, it had to be her and her alone. Only light gear, no contacts or pit stops on either side, just a straight drive thought, no extra precautions either – a simple job that could be done by anyone, for much less money. No, she was not the one to drive. No, they will use client’s car, she will get a replacement once they cross.

But the pay was good and she needed the cash, so she agreed.

It went smoothly until it didn’t.

Her protectee – who told her to refer to him as ‘Bill’, a name so fake that he didn’t even react when she called him by it for the first couple of times – pulled over to the side of the road. They passed the last signs of civilization a good quarter of an hour earlier and there was nothing but woods for miles in each direction. She checked her phone. No signal. He picked the spot carefully.

“Why are we stopping?” she asked, her eyes fixed on the holstered pistol at his side. His hands were still on the steering wheel, but it would take him just a fraction of a second to reach for the gun. She had to be ready, there won’t be much time to react.

“The nature’s calling,” he said and turned to her, his arm draping on her seat.

“That bluff would work better if you got out of the car.”

He leaned in closer. “You know damn well why we’re here, Romanoff.”

She smiled. “So, you know my name. Congratulations, to you and to millions of other people who saw me on tv last year.”

He hit the door latch with his elbow, engaging the central lock. She reached for her gun. Her reaction was quick, but not quick enough. He grabbed her hair from behind, pulling her head back. She recoiled and brought her gun up. He snatched her wrist before she could fire. His massive hand went all the way around with quite a bit of overlap and squeezed. Bone cracked. She yelped. He wrestled the gun away.

He pushed the muzzle of the pistol to her stomach. “Talk,” he growled.

She twisted her neck as much as she could with his fist still in her hair. She needed another haircut, it was getting too long for her own good. She bared her teeth in a snarl. “Fuck you.”

He clocked her in the face. “Don’t think I have any reservations about hitting a woman.”

She swallowed the blood that pooled in her mouth and smiled widely. “You call that a punch?”

He pressed the gun to her stomach with force enough to leave a bruise. “Talk,” he demanded.

“You usually start those things with asking a question, you know?” she breathed.

“You know damn well what I want.”

She laughed.

He punched her again.

She spit in his face.

He roared an uncreative invective and grabbed her throat.

Her hand flew to his forehead the moment the gun was no longer aimed straight at her gut. He growled and tried jerking away, a surge of fear making his brain all that easier to penetrate. She pulled on that thread, multiplying it, twisting it into a ball of terror and pain and anguish. He wailed like a wounded animal. _Sleep_ , she ordered. His eyes rolled backwards, and he doubled over, crashing face first onto the steering wheel. The horn blared, piercing the night.

She sat back and assessed the damage, sending the sparks of magic through her body. She couldn’t tell whether ‘Bill’ had some sort of enhancement going on or if he turned as strong as he did naturally but he did some damage, either way. She had a broken bone, a split lip, bruises on her stomach and around her throat that were already starting to swell and he knocked out a tooth.

“Motherfucker,” she snarled and decked him in the ear with the hilt of the pistol, knocking him off the wheel and finally silencing the horn.

She didn’t have enough energy to heal all the injuries, so, after minute deliberation, she decided the broken arm was the most urgent. The tendrils of power ran through her limb, shimmering with starlight, prickling like an electric current. The bone snapped back into place and remerged, blood vessels knitted together, dissolving some of the swelling.

Her head drooped and sweat pearled on her forehead. She breathed a couple of deep breaths trying to ward off the dizziness. She couldn’t faint, not right now.

She had to hold on to the hood of the car to keep herself steady. Her head was swimming with exhaustion and her legs were wobbly and she felt like collapsing and sleeping for an entire day.

Not yet though.

Bill was heavy and it took a lot of tugging to drag him out of the car. She regarded him, lying face first in the dirt. They must’ve be really afraid of her to send that mountain of a man after her. _Guess what, that’s not enough._

She dropped to her knees and pressed her fingers to his skull again. His mind was still reeling with confusion, scared and lost in the dark and it split open at the slightest touch. She raked through scattered memories and emotions dispassionately. There was a lot of violence there, a lot of blood, a lot of hate. He was a willing participant, but a low level one. An enforcer who followed orders without asking questions and took pride in it, not a decisive body. There was nothing she could learn from there.

She sighed, pulled out the gun, aimed it at the back of his neck and fired. Then she got into the car, turned around and drove back, leaving the lifeless body in on the roadside, with blood soaking into the gravel.

She did not look back.

She didn’t pick up any new jobs for a couple of weeks after that, just to be safe.

The tooth cost ten grand to fix and another two extra for the dentist to lose her medical record and she promised to herself to steal something valuable from the next Hydra base she stumbles upon, before burning it to the foundations.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not so fun fact: according to some sources, the "suspension above an electrified metal plate" is an actual method of torture CIA used it their prisons outside US.


	41. Progress

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which an encounter with an old enemy leads to (un)surprising discoveries.

The graph looked impressive, labelled with names and functions and dates and places she drafted on a spread-out party size pizza box. It was a collection of all the info she gathered so far, laid out in a visual form to help her think and she spent an entire evening working on it. It was still _something_ to do.

There was quite a bit of it, now: unit names, lines of command, operations and locations, spanning all over the world. But it was still all loose change, with no rule or order. No motive, no modus operandi, no purpose. She traced the lines leading from regular soldiers and low tier agents and techs, to commanding officers, to department directors and then up to the big question mark at the top.

There had to be someone who coordinated this. Perhaps without full authority, but with enough of it to keep the entire show rolling, a person who knew the reason for all of this, who could pull the strings and point the machine in the right direction, someone with high enough position in the ranks of SHIELD to make it all even possible. She scrambled all her resources, queried every source, scoured every available bit of intel. But no matter how hard she insisted, how much she pushed, the spot at the top always came up blank. As if no one knew who it was.

It wasn’t the last piece this puzzle was missing but it was unquestionably the most important one. Without it, the picture remained what it currently was – a tangle of disjointed data. Without it, all her work was useless. And sure, perhaps making it public as-is would put a nick in the great plan, whatever it was. Send some people to jail. Make some resources harder to reach. But as long as the collapse wasn’t pulling those that truly mattered along with it, it would be just that – a hindrance, not a full stop. It would make those in power bury themselves even deeper, make them even harder to reach, make the other question marks on the board even more of a mystery.

There were a few of those too. The gaping maw of the SHIELD and Council bureaucratic machine was great at swallowing resources. Where did it all go? What were they building towards? The Council forces snatched Fury’s unfinished research and it never popped anywhere on the radar again, despite a steady trickle of financial support going to the research divisions all across the states, both from the government and from private contributors that spanned well across the list of the richest, most influential people in the world, American billionaires, Russian oligarchs, Indian tech magnates, Middle Eastern oil potentates, some royals, too. Then there was the scepter and an unanswered question about its current whereabouts. What Clint said in his briefing has checked out – it was in DC for a while, being experimented with, although the data she was able to obtain was murky about the results of those tests. But then it just… vanished, without a trace. No single handling report or inventory note, nothing. A powerful weapon, a mystical object from before the beginnings of the universe… and it was just gone, like it never existed.

Just like Loki.

Except, she knew it existed. He did, too. He wasn’t just some figment of her imagination and there was a whisp of magic that connected them etched into her mind to serve as proof, even if there wasn’t anything else.

She pulled it forth, like countless times before and it appeared, like it always did. While the other links grew fainter over time or crumbled away from her memory completely, like bruises that healed and faded away, this one stayed and was now a bright stroke on the firmament of her mind, constantly there, even when she wasn’t looking. An ebb of magic and it lit up with shimmering light, spanning from horizon to horizon and she wrapped it around herself like a blanked made of stars. The cavern of her thoughts rippled and changed, bright, white sky replacing the void above, the outline of snowy peaks appearing on the obsidian walls…

Her instincts warned her a split-second earlier than her senses. She dropped flat to the ground, the vision fading from her brain. The window shattered and the chest of drawers behind her exploded into a flurry of splinters. She grabbed her gun and crawled, then hid behind the sofa. Another bullet hit the solitary lamp, bathing the room in darkness. A red dot of a laser sight traced a line on the wall, steady and deadly.

There was someone on the roof on the other side of the street. Their mind glistened in the dark like a wild tangle of colorful strings, fuzzy and swarming and… wrong. It wasn’t a mind of a person, not truly, more like that of a wild animal, ferocious and feral, but lacking deeper awareness.

She leaped to the window and peeked outside and immediately dropped back down, as another projectile flew above, exactly where her head just was a moment ago. _Okay, bad idea_.

The person was still there and she reached out again, brushing against the teeming psyche, trying to establish a connection. It was pliant and bent under her wishes, but she couldn’t force the connection to ignite and stay in place, it felt unfamiliar and it was made even harder at that distance, with other people all around. She had to get closer, but there was no way to get to the other roof without being noticed or spooking the target. Well, the perp, she was the target in this scenario.

She focused again, sending out one clear command. _Stay_. It splashed against the brightness and the tangle curled and shifted and she couldn’t say what the reaction meant. The person didn’t move from their spot on the roof though.

_Let’s find out, shall we?_

She crawled until she reached the door, then got on her feet and ran. She should’ve added ‘and do not shoot me’ to the mental command.

She ran down the stairs and through the backdoor, then slowly creeped along the wall until she reached the street and peeked out, then immediately retreated. There was no gunshot and the shooter was still where they were before, away from the edge of the roof. She couldn’t see them, but that also meant they didn’t see her either. She dashed to the other side of the street and into the side alley, then jumped on a trash bin and grabbed onto a fire exit ladder. It rattled as it slid down and she froze. They must’ve heard it, there was no other way. Yet, when she checked, the gunman was still in their old position. The command worked better than she expected.

She still tried to keep quiet as she climbed, not sure how long and how well it would hold, then stopped just at the top of the ascent. She peeked. There was a chimney, right between the edge of the roof and the place the person occupied. She crawled forth and hid behind it, considering. She could shoot them, right now. She _should_ shoot them. It wasn’t the first time they found her. It was the safest course of action, getting rid of the problem, once and for all.

Her hand stayed where it was and she couldn’t force herself to reach for the gun. There was something off about that mind. Something that scared her but also drew her in. Then she recognized that feeling, that irrational unwillingness to do harm. It was the same with Loki.

“You don’t want to shoot me,” she yelled and added a mental push to go along with the words. “I’m going to come out now, okay?”

The fuzzy mind swirled and changed, registering her words, but there was no response.

Counting to three didn’t help to settle the doubt so she bit her lip and stepped out of the cover, trying not to think how grave of a mistake she could be making right now.

The man was holding his gun up and aimed at her and – when she looked down – the dot of the sight was now sitting firmly at her chest. “You don’t want to shoot me,” she repeated.

His metal arm glistened in the moonlight as he lowered his sniper riffle, just a bit. Enough for it to look like a deliberate gesture, but not enough for it to take more than a blink of an eye to bring it back up and fire. He had a mask on that covered his lower face from the nose down and long hair that fell over his eyes, obscuring the rest of his features. The gear he was wearing didn’t look like standard issue, but rather something custom-made. There was no insignia she could see on it, other than the red star on the metal arm.

She saw that mark before. Long time ago, in her previous life.

“You’re the one who they call the Winter Soldier,” she said, keeping her voice steady, not without effort. The man was a stuff from fairy tales. The old ones, that ended with anguish and death. A ghost. “We’ve met before, a long time ago.”

He looked at her through narrowed eyes and his confusion was a palpable thing, squirming in his brain as it scrambled for answers and came up empty. He didn’t recognize her, that much was obvious. He didn’t even recognize his own title.

Panic spiked and she pushed back, smoothing it over. “It’s okay, I’m not going to hurt you.”

She was now moving forward, closing the distance, in careful, well-telegraphed steps. “How do they call you then?” she asked.

His mind flared up again, struggling for an answer, before settling on one. “An asset,” he said. His voice was rough and muffled by the mask, but not beyond the point of intelligibility.

“You don’t have a name?”

His brows furrowed, his scattered thoughts twisted around in his skull and he shook his head.

She was a couple steps away now. “Why are you here?”

“I have an objective,” he said.

“What kind of objective?”

He strained for an answer again and picked his mind for a while before he found one, sparkling with bright intensity, and clasped on it. She saw it coming before his synapses fired in the programmed order and she lunged just as he started to raise his weapon, knocking the gun out of his hands and tackling him to the ground. He grabbed her arm and threw her off then rolled into a crouch. She kicked him in the shin and threw herself on him when he toppled over, pinning him down. She reached for his head. His metal arm whirred and he punched her in the ribs.

They rolled on the roof for a few seconds, each as eager to get on top as the other. She kicked him in the jaw and wrapped her legs around his neck. He arched his spine and threw himself backwards, throwing her off. She dashed away, swerved and pinned his throat to the ground with her knee. He grabbed her leg and twisted it until her joint screamed in pain. She yanked free and scrambled away. He leapt, she dodged. His fist gripped her hair and brought her down, pressing her face to the surface of the roof.

_Yep, definitely a haircut._

He sat astride her and pushed his metal arm to her neck. “To kill you,” he breathed into her ear, answering the outstanding question.

A ray of moonlight reflected off the blade, just for a second, before she twisted under him, sunk it in his side and turned, then pulled it up.

He did not make a sound as he crumbled. His eyes grew wide with an utter lack of understanding and he collapsed, panting, blood seeping between the metal fingers pressed to the gash in his abdomen.

She bent over and pressed her palms to his temples.

His mind was… a mess. There was no other word to describe it, yet it felt insufficient, in a way.

Her first instincts didn’t lie, but didn’t tell the whole truth. On the surface his psyche was simple, single-minded, honed to kill, to follow an objective against all odds, not allowed to question, like a well trained attack beast. Then, underneath that outer layer was… something. Flashes of light, of pain and screams stuck in his throat, tearing at him, remolding, breaking him apart. She pushed further and his memories spilled, torn to shreds and twisted, buried under the blanket of bright, hot agony and shouted orders. Then came the cold, the cruel kind that sunk its teeth in the bones and froze blood in the veins and more pain, pain, pain, until she couldn’t take it anymore.

She pulled out and let the visions fade. She could still sense the turmoil, swarming and pulsing inside his mind, the scraps of recollections bouncing inside his skull as he scrambled to comprehend their sudden existence where there was just blank space a moment ago. His eyes were on her, bright and bleary and utterly, completely confused. “What… what did you do to me?” he wheezed and coughed. He reached for the mask and pulled it free then wiped blood off his lips with the back of his hand. His face reminded her of someone, in the vaguest of ways, but she couldn’t truly place it and the weird smudges of dark face paint around his eyes didn’t help. What was that? Some kind of urban camouflage? A fashion statement?

His breathing was growing more rapid and ragged.

Her hand rested on top of his metal fingers still clutching the wound and she probed. Her attack was effective, the gash ran deep and did a lot of damage, severing the muscle, rupturing his intestines, tearing his stomach and puncturing his lung, causing internal hemorrhage.

He was going to die if she didn’t do something. But doing it right where they were wouldn’t cut it. It was a complicated injury and she would need to use all the energy she had for even a slight chance to heal it. Even then, it’s wasn’t going to be perfect, so best case scenario was the sun rising on her lying unconscious on the roof with a half-dead Soviet-era assassin at her side and that could only end in a disaster.

“Can you walk?” she asked, not hoping for much. To her surprise, he nodded and started to rise, programmed responses taking over his instincts. He didn’t even flinch. “No, press your hand to the wound, I’ll help you.”

This was bringing back all sorts of unwanted memories.

She grabbed him and wrapped his regular, fleshy arm around her shoulders, then led him to the exit. She ignored the fire escape, that wouldn’t work, and headed for the staircase entrance. It was closed, so she just kicked it open, then guided him down the flight of stairs and into an elevator.

He stumbled a couple of times but other than that he was taking the ‘suffering in silence’ thing to a haunting level. What kind of training had they put him though if he didn’t even think of crying out while walking around with his guts torn to shreds?

He collapsed the moment they reached her apartment then crawled closer to the wall and slumped, exhausted. She turned on the bedside lamp – the main was shot not that long ago, by the very man that was now bleeding out on her floor – and dug through her bag, until she produced the first aid kit and a pair of handcuffs.

“This is for later,” she said, showing him the kit. She placed it on the floor, close enough for him to reach. She brough up the cuffs. “And this is for now.”

His stare was blank.

“I’m sorry, but I have no idea what kind of conditioning you have in your brain and I don’t want you to wake up tomorrow with a fresh desire to kill me and all the tools to do so as I lie here, out cold. So, if you want my help, play by my rules and give me your hand.” He didn’t argue and brought his metal arm up for her. “No, the other one, the one you can’t detach as easily.” She wasn’t sure how much the cuffs would help if the conditioning snapped back into place (probably not much) but it was something.

He listened and didn’t protest as she clasped one of the bracelets around his wrist and the other to the heating pipe above his head.

“Okay, now… relax, I suppose.”

He didn’t move an inch.

She tugged at the buckles of his vest then pulled it free. He wasn’t wearing anything underneath. His skin was a motley of old wounds in various stages of recovery and the most prominent of them all was the ridge of scar tissue that ran around his metal limb. It wasn’t just a tool, it was grafted directly into his flesh…

She shivered and took a deep breath. “Here we go.”

Her core burst to life and she directed it, letting the power flow. She was more deliberate, focusing on healing the gravest injuries first, his lung, his stomach, his intestines. She could deal with the rest later, if he lived.

Energy seeped through her fingers slowly, with a guided intent. Her eyes grew heavy so she closed them, focused on the tingling tendrils of magic running through her and went on, and on, and on…

\---

Her head was pounding like there was something malicious living inside her skull, her throat was parched and every muscle ached dully.

Yeah, she definitely did not miss the feeling of magical overexertion. Given, it wasn’t as bad as the first one, she was more careful this time around.

It was still rather awful.

She opened her eyes. Sunlight burned and she had to fight herself to keep them ajar. There was a bottle of water right next to her head. She gulped it down before she could spare it a thought. Did she prepare it? No, she would remember if she did…

Her eyes dashed to the spot by the window. It was empty. The radiator was ripped off its mounting plate, the pipe bent out of shape. The first aid kit was gone. _Well, damn._

There was a knock on the door. She pulled on her senses and immediately crashed against a barrier of pain. _Mhm_. She pushed herself off the ground and onto her feet with a loud groan. There was another knock, more impatient this time.

“I’m coming,” she yelled. “Geez…”

She cracked the door open, just a tad. There were two police officers standing in the hallway.

“How may I help you?” she asked.

“There’s been a report of a shooting that happened during the night. Did you hear or see anything suspicious?”

The roughest part of Detroit and someone still called the cops because of some gunshots? And she thought that nothing could surprise her anymore.

“No, I slept like a baby,” she said, “I mean, I had a bit of a rough night, soo…”

One of the officers sniggered, the other fought to keep a stern face. “Your neighbors said they heard some noises from your apartment. Are you sure everything’s in order?”

“As I said, rough night.”

The older, more serious one crooked his neck, peeking inside through the crack. “Can we come in and check if everything is fine?”

She glanced back at the room, at the shattered window, the ruined furniture, the destroyed radiator, the pool of blood by the window… “I would rather not, I have a bit of a mess.”

“It’s all right, we just want to…” he said and grabbed the knob.

She blocked the door with her foot. “I said I’m fine. If you want to search my place, get a warrant,” she snarled.

He considered, then took a step back. “All right, mam.” He reached to his pocket and pulled out a card. “If you remember something or see anything out of ordinary, give us a call.”

“Sure,” she muttered and flung the door shut without taking the card.

She leaned on the door and pressed her fingers to her eyes. She was bone-tired and wanted nothing more than eat a solid breakfast and fall back asleep for another twelve hours. She rarely got what she wanted these days and right now there was a more pressing matter to attend - she had to scram, pronto. The officers weren’t convinced by her act and who could say what they would do, maybe they’d indeed get a warrant or drag someone more _persuasive_ over. She definitely didn’t want to be there when they did.

She could grab something to eat on the road. Coffee, too. A lot of it, black as night.

She packed her clothes and unplugged the charger from the wall then went to pick up her study aid. She had to shred it or else it could fall into wrong hands and giving them an exact idea how much she knew was an act of terminal stupidity she wasn’t going to commit.

Her eyes slid over the board. Just one last glance, to imprint it into her memory so she could work on it later. Then she noticed it. Writing that definitely didn’t come from under her hand. The letters were skewed and wobbly, written with dark brown ink that looked suspiciously like blood, right above her big question mark at the top.

 _PIERCE_ , it said.

_Well, damn._

\---

She drove, paying the least required amount of attention to the road, her mind reeling.

Pierce. Alexander Pierce, the goddamned head of the goddamned World Security Council.

She couldn’t be sure she could trust a man who couldn’t even remember his own name, that much was true, but on the other hand – it made an awful lot of sense. And she would be lying if she said she didn’t think about it earlier. But, as much as she wanted to grant herself brownie points for figuring it out earlier, Pierce was only one position on the long list of names she considered just as likely.

Then, assuming it was true, what did it change? It gave her a solid lead but didn’t clear any other names. Pierce and Fury clashed often, but that could be just a game they played, a show, a façade. Fury could still be in on that. Hell, she would be surprised if he weren’t, if not in then at least aware to some extent, it all happened right under his nose and came straight from the man directly above him.

A stray thought halted her musings. She should warn Clint.

She reached for her phone then stopped her hand in the middle of the gesture. She already gave him all the warnings she could, and he did not believe her. And sure, he did give her a head start and didn’t rattle her out, it would take less time to confirm her betrayal and put a warrant on her head if he did, but that didn’t mean it won’t happen if she contacts him again. He was the kind of man who was fiercely loyal to his friends and held a grudge against his enemies for a long time and she couldn’t tell in which group she fell, now.

She needed allies. Someone who she could truly trust at least as far as motivations went, someone who would understand what she was trying to do. Someone who could actually do something with what she gathered but would still give her time for finding Loki and wouldn’t judge her for that aspect.

That, pretty much, set up a collection of parameters that were simply impossible to meet.

If only there was a…

She slammed the brakes and veered to the side of the road. A car behind her honked and the driver flipped her off as they swerved to avoid her.

The vision! How could she forget about it? She almost made it, she reignited the connection and was so close!

She had to try again, now. It would perhaps be wise to wait, recoup, but she couldn’t, not when she was so close to finally finding him. She screwed her eyes shut and focused.

Tried to. She crashed on the barrier again, and again, until the tears of pain running down her cheeks made her stop. She was still too exhausted and had no reserves, even for such simple magic. She punched the dashboard in a fit of impotence and the tears that followed were of the regular kind.

\---

She didn’t make it far, just a bit past Fort Wayne, before she could no longer keep her eyes on the road. She pulled over from the interstate and found a motel, that turned out a bit less dingy on the inside than it seemed from its curb appeal, rented a single room then crashed onto the floor the moment she was through the door.

She didn’t bother with beds anymore. She kept on postponing that step for “after” and – as the “after” got pushed further and further back – she got used to the thought. It might be weird, but people had stranger quirks. Those added character, right? Some collected vintage postcards, some lived with seventeen cats and Natasha Romanoff slept on the floor. No big deal.

Despite the tiredness, the sleep refused to claim her. Meditation would be a futile attempt considering how the last try ended just a couple hours earlier, so she just lay there, thinking.

The Winter Soldier was a mystery that multiple generations of agents cut their teeth on. A mystical creature, almost. An urban legend. And there he was, waiting for her on the top of that roof, a broken man with a mind that was put through a blender. Over and over and over again, from the looks of things.

She wasn’t sure what made her certain it was truly him. She should be questioning it; the age didn’t match, and he hasn’t been seen for more than a decade now. Yet there was no doubt in her mind that it was. One look and she knew. And the rest must have an explanation.

Age was easy, she only needed to look in the mirror to find the answer to that, a theory further confirmed by his quick reflexes and strength. It could be even the exact same formula, the dates and locations matched, roughly.

The other details were more of a mystery. Why did he reappear now, after years of inactivity? Probably again, if it really was him, back in the nineties. Where was he when he wasn’t active? Were Hydra the ones to control him all this time, or did they snatch him somewhere along the way and used the same tech they manipulated Cole with on him, making him a pawn?

What would happen to the man now? Did she do enough for him to regain his sense of self and start a recovery process, like Cole finally managed, at least to some extent? Or was it not enough and the tendrils of control would crawl back into his mind and drag him under? And, even if they don’t, would he be able to stay out of Hydra’s gasp or would they find him and put him through the process again.

Now that she saw the machine’s effects on the brain for herself, she understood Loki’s revulsion all the better. It was one thing to hurt person’s body, but to invade one’s mind in such a way was a hundredfold worse. She also understood why Loki thought it was even more cruel than the scepter’s control. Where – according to what Loki told her – the staff’s spell took one’s mind and pushed it aside, Hydra’s machine pulled it out and shattered it to pieces, replacing the remains with harsh, repeated training until not a hint of the original personality was left.

And so, yet again, it turned out that the worst enemy to mankind are the humans themselves.

\---

A few nights of more or less restful sleep and a couple of decent meals later Natasha could with high degree of surety say her body no longer felt like giving up, curling into a ball, and sleeping until winter. Which was right about time because she stayed in one place far too long already. Her mind wasn’t as quick to recover and any attempt she made at reaching for the trace still culminated with a splitting headache and – on one occasion – even blacking out. So, as much as she was eager to try to reach out again, that had to wait.

Again.

At least now she knew Loki was still out there, somewhere. She kept on pushing the insistent thought that he might be dead already and she was just chasing shadows to the darkest, deepest corner of her mind and focused on other, more productive pursuits, but it was there, nonetheless, lurking and waiting for a moment of weakness. The brief glimpse helped to silence it, for now.

There were no more signs of the Winter Soldier, so perhaps he did manage to slip his masters’ grasp and disappear into the woodwork. Natasha found herself hoping he did.

That didn’t ease her anxiety, not fully. They found her, time after time, no matter how well she hid her tracks, no matter how cautious she were. She only took two jobs since the mishap at the border and it was weeks ago, her last contact broke up abruptly and she’s been laying low since then. Yet, they still got to her, somehow. And, even if the Winter Soldier were no longer on her tail, they still had enough people and resources to keep chasing until they eliminated the threat, and that deadline depended only on how good she was at avoiding the pursuit.

She already checked her car for markers and scanned her devices for tracing software, multiple times, with exact same result – nothing. That also did little to make her feel safe. No matter how far she ran, as long as she stayed around other people there was always a risk of someone recognizing her. Her face was made public not once, but twice. First during the invasion and then later, when she was publicly named a fugitive from law and every news channel ran a material about it, burning her image into the mind of every American who didn’t live under a rock. She was good at disguises, but not _that_ good. If only she learned about illusions from Loki… That would have come pretty damn handy right about now. The topic never came up though, it wasn’t important to what they were trying to achieve, and she had no basis, no angle from which she could even begin to approach the subject.

Leaving the country and going far enough away to a place where people didn’t concern themselves with US affairs was the only way that would guarantee at least some peace, but she couldn’t do that. So, she kept on moving.

She moved on now, too. Five days in one place was already pushing it far enough.

\---

The bag landed in the trunk and she paused, one hand on the hatch, the other over her gun. The shrubs rustled again.

“You can come out. I know you’re in there,” she called.

The overgrown holly bush parted, and the Winter Soldier stepped out and onto the parking lot. He looked different, no longer clean-shaven, with his hair pulled into a ponytail, and wearing civilian clothes: some jeans, hiking boots and a long-sleeved sports jacket, despite the ninety-degrees heat.

His hands were stashed in his pockets and she eyed him cautiously, trying to judge if he had a hidden gun or not.

“I’m unarmed,” he said, as if sensing her precariousness. Or simply noticing her glare.

“How did you find me?”

“Your gun,” he said and pointed his chin at her side, where her holster was hidden under her sweater.

“You tagged my gun?!” Damn, she didn’t even think about that. It also meant that he found it, took it apart and left it where it was, after she stabbed him and chained him to a radiator then fainted like a wilting flower trying to undo some of the damage, leaving herself vulnerable.

“You can ditch all your equipment or your car, but not your weapons,” he said, then pulled out a device out of his pocket. It looked like a mobile phone and would pass as such in public, but she quickly recognized it as a surveillance monitor. He handed it to her. “You’ll want to destroy it.”

“Why?”

“I got rid of the rest of my gear but kept this to find you.”

Even if the device wasn’t being traced per se, it still connected to the satellite network and triangulating its location was an easy job for an organization with Hydra’s resources.

She dropped it on the asphalt and squashed it with her heel, then kicked the remainders into a storm drain. “Why look for me?”

“I need answers.”

“I don’t have that many to offer.”

“It’s still more than I have.”

She sighed. “Get in. I don’t want to be here when they come to pick you up. I bet you don’t want that either.”

\---

They’ve been driving for a while, without either of them speaking. She watched him discreetly from the corner of her eye. As soon as they left the sprawl and were out in the open road he slumped in the chair and his vigilance slipped. He no longer seemed half-dead like he did the last she saw him and the way he moved didn’t betray he was in pain, so the joint venture of her magic and his enhanced body must’ve dealt with the worst of the injury. He still looked tired.

“So,” she started, after the silence turned from uneasy to tense, “did you remember your name?”

“It’s… James,” he said, trying it out. “I think.”

She hesitated. “I’m Natasha.” It didn’t change much either way. “Perhaps you knew that already.”

He shook his head. “I didn’t need your name to kill you.”

“So… What is it that you wanted to talk about?”

The metal fingers curled and uncurled nervously in his lap. The movement was smooth and felt natural, nothing like the jerky, cumbersome prosthetics from the mainstream market. The artificial limb was a state-of-the-art piece of technology, something that could come out of Stark’s lab. Although, she suspected, Stark would go for something less invasive and less permanent if given an option.

“I can’t make sense of all the things in my head. I… It’s all a blur and there’s…,” he said, his voice strained. “What you did to me… How were you able to do that?”

She bit her lip, considering. What could she say for him to believe her but not deem her dangerous at the same time?

“I have a small gift of…” There was no two ways around it. “Telepathy. I can sense the surface level of people’s thoughts when I touch them. I could see the barrier that was put in your mind and I poked at it and what you now experience is what spilled through that hole.” It was basically what happened, only with a bit more magic in the mix.

He frowned, but didn’t comment, his face drawn in thought. What she said probably didn’t stand out as that weird compared to other things swarming in his mind right now. She wished she could reach in and see for herself, but the nape of her neck started to prickle at the very notion.

“Is it real? All of it?” he asked after a moment.

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “Could be, could be not. What they did to you, with that machine, they did over and over, and I don’t know how much survived the treatment and what got skewed or is gone for good. How much can you remember?”

He thought for a moment before answering. “I remember I had to kill you. That was an imperative and there was just no other option. Until there suddenly was. Then pieces. Flashes of some old life I don’t remember living. I remember the name, but I can’t recognize my own face in the mirror. I can do things I don’t remember learning. I can understand languages I can’t even name. And there’s a lot of gaps, that feel like there should be something but there’s not.”

“You remembered Pierce,” she prompted.

“He gave me the order. And other ones, just like that, before. It was him, always him, who’s face is burned into my head to remind me what would happen if I fail. And the name… That’s how they referred to him. They thought I won’t remember, but I did.”

“You don’t know who he is?”

“He is someone important and he is the man who made me into what I am and I’m going to kill him for that,” he stated, dully. There was absolutely no emotion in his voice, just cold resolution.

“Well, if you do, make sure to tell him I send my regards before you pull the trigger.”

\---

“When was the last time you ate?”

“I stole some bars two days ago,” he said.

“Well, it looks like it’s the high time for some proper meal then,” she said and pulled over in front of a diner.

“I don’t have any money.”

“Let me worry about that, okay?” she said and turned the engine off. “Now, shall we?”

\---

James went through a bowl of tomato soup, two quarter-pounders, five pancakes and two servings of fries before he started to slow down and she wondered idly if the hole in his stomach wasn’t still there, because, seriously, where did he even fit all that?

“Better?” she asked and took a sip of her coffee.

He stashed the last couple of fries into his mouth, licked his fingers and nodded. He was eating using only one hand, keeping his metal limb under the table and out of view the whole time. He was aware enough to understand it makes him stand out.

“I have some gloves in the trunk,” she said. “You can borrow them later.”

He crooked his head and looked at her with a frown. “Why are you doing this?”

“Doing what?”

“This.” He gestured around. “You had me in clear shot, but you didn’t shoot me. You only stabbed me after I attacked you and then you helped me, when you could just leave me on that roof. And now you’re buying me food.”

“I’m not a huge fan of killing people who don’t deserve to die,” she said. “And I hate to see people go hungry when they don’t have to.”

He regarded her for a moment, trying to grasp the simple meaning and apparently only partially succeeding. “Why do they want you dead?”

“Well, I’ve been going after their secrets for some time and it looks like I’ve learned enough to warrant a price on my head.”

“Why?”

“It started with them taking someone I… a friend. Then I found about the rest, so now I’m working on bringing it all down.”

“You have someone helping you?”

She glowered. “We are not there yet,” she said lightly. She was convinced he wasn’t actively working for Hydra anymore, not consciously. But there was still a chance he was a plant or had an activation switch buried deep in his brain. And then, if that weren’t the case, there was still a possibility he would be recaptured and there would be nothing stopping him from spilling her secrets once they put him through the machine again. “No hard feelings.”

He nodded and looked away, through the window onto the darkening sky. His eyes were steel blue and not green, but the forlorn, lost look in them still reminded her of Loki so much it hurt. She had a knack for attracting reluctant villains, it seemed.

“You done eating? Because if you are, we should scram,” she said, then added, more quietly, “the waitress has been eyeing us weirdly since we came in and now she disappeared in the kitchen. She might be calling the police as we speak.”

\---

They stopped at another motel eighty miles west. She considered taking two rooms then decided against it. She would be better off if she kept an eye on him.

When she emerged from the bathroom James was sitting on the bed with his shirt off. He was prodding the wound dressing on his side. It was applied with sufficient efficiency but showed some wear, as if it wasn’t replaced in a while, which, well, it probably wasn’t. He had no bag or anything else that could hold any supplies. No money, either,

“That looks like it needs changing,” she said and pulled her replacement first aid kit. It wasn’t as fancy as the one she left for him, but that was a military grade equipment, and this was one she got at a drugstore. It still had some disinfectant and gauze though. “Let me.”

“Who was that friend?” James asked, as she was cutting though the old bandage. “The one they took.”

“Someone I deeply care about.” She weighted her options. She could stop at that and learn nothing, but not risk her motive being revealed. But if James knew something… Besides, they probably figured it out already anyway. It wasn’t that hard to guess and Fury just straightforward _knew_. “Name’s Loki.”

She gauged his reaction but there was nothing. “Have you met or heard about anyone with that name?”

James shook his head. “If I did, I do not remember it.”

Oh well, it was worth a try.

The wound was still healing, but it was stitched up properly and didn’t show any signs of infection, so it looked like he got away with that. It was going to leave a nasty scar, but… She chuckled. It roughly matched the location of the mark he left on her, decades prior. She wondered if he had the recollection of that then quickly decided he probably didn’t and there was no way to tell how he would react if she reminded him.

“Do you have any friends?” she asked to mask her reaction. “Any family?”

“I don’t know.”

“Maybe it will come back, with time.”

“Maybe.”

\---

“You can take the bed.” He looked at her with suspicion. “You look like you need it more. I’m going to keep watch; we can switch later.” There was no need to go into details.

He sat down on the edge of the mattress then looked down at his mismatched hands. “You want to handcuff me again? In case…”

She scoffed. “Oh please, like it helped the last time. You’d just ruin the headboard and I’ll have to pay for it. Besides, you destroyed my last pair.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I’ll live.”

He laid down. She settled in an armchair by the window.

“You know, it’s generally advised to take off your boots before you go to sleep. That’s what a regular human being would do. Also, you’d probably be more comfortable _under_ the duvet.”

He got up and took off his shoes, then crawled under the covers, only confirming her suspicion that he learned most about functioning in a society from careful observation and not from the disjointed bits and pieces in his head. “It’s better that way, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“It’s been a while since the last time you got to sleep in a bed, isn’t it?”

His silence was an indicator that it was just another thing about himself he didn’t know.

“You want me to turn off the light?”

“No.”

She sighed.

He lay there, his eyes open and turned to the ceiling.

“Do you remember where they were keeping you?” she asked. “When you were not out on a mission, I mean.”

He shifted and turned to his side to look at her. “I don’t know. I… It was cold. And dark. And I was there for a long time.”

“Well, that might make a shitty motel a welcome change of scenery at least.”

\---

It was maybe half an hour after he fell asleep that he stirred, yelped, and sprung up, then got caught in the sheets. He kicked and tossed around, like the duvet was a living thing trying to smother him.

“Hey,” she said and helped him untangle his limbs from the fabric. “It’s okay. It’s just a blanket.”

Now if that wasn’t familiar, Natasha didn’t know what was.

He swung his legs over the side and sat up, panting, his head down. “I was a soldier,” he whispered and wiped sweat off his forehead. “In some great war.”

Great war? How old was he, exactly?

“Is that what you dreamed about?”

“There was… a fight. I got hit and… it felt like I died, but that couldn’t be right, could it? I’m still alive.” There was something in his voice that said he wasn’t all that sure about that.

“You are.”

He nodded.

“Go back to sleep,” she said. “You need it.”

\---

He did fall back asleep, eventually, and it looked like this time it was going to stick.

She waited a moment longer, then pulled out her laptop. There was not much to go on from: James, considered dead in one of the world wars. He spoke with a vague Russian accent but did slip into a New Yorker drawl a couple of times. It might be something he was taught for a mission, of course, but, along with his Anglosphere name, it made her suspect he might have been an American, once. How would an American end up working as a hitman for KGB was still a mystery though, and the name could be just as fake as the accent, or perhaps just an English translation.

She still put the information in the dossier. She brought forth her contact list and typed away.

\---

The query came up just as empty as the bed in the morning. Neither was much of a surprise.

There was no note this time. She waited till noon, just in case he came back, but he did not, so she packed up and headed on.

As much as she was tempted, she didn’t leave any contact info, there was no way to do it safely in case someone intercepted the message: phone number can be traced the next time she uses it, email can be hacked into and there simply was no address she knew she’d be at, even if giving such details in plain text wasn’t a terminal stupidity.

Besides, it would be in vain anyway. He wouldn’t come back to look for her here. Even without his memories he still seemed to have quite a well-functioning survival instinct, a legacy of his training, perhaps.

Too bad he didn’t stay. She hoped he would, even if he had the vibe of a wild animal caught in a trap when he was around other people, and it didn’t surprise her in the slightest that he skipped. They could both benefit from a partnership. He needed someone to ease him up into the world of the living again, she needed a company.

She spent most of the last months on her own and was used to it, but the brief encounter reminded her how nice it was to have someone to talk to. Even if that someone was an amnesiac assassin. He wouldn’t be the weirdest companion she went on a road trip with, would he?

\---

She left the town driving west, without any particular destination in mind, but that direction felt… incorrect. She should perhaps go to Chicago, where it would be easier to get lost in the crowd, or even further North, across the border, just for a bit, to lay low and observe what comes down next. She could work on contacting Loki again anywhere, it’s not like she had any idea where he was kept. She could wait out the worst of the heatwave that was currently rolling over continental US that way, too. Yeah, that was a good call.

She turned around and drove to New York instead and if someone asked her why, she wouldn’t be able to clarify the issue.

\---

Life has returned to the city and it would be hard to tell anything like the Battle of New York ever happened when one walked through the streets. Still, being back was disappointing. She expected it to feel at least a bit like coming back home after a long trip, but it did not. The metropolis lost its luster in her eyes and was just as dirty and smelly and crowded like any other big city in the world. She used to think she made her home here, but it was never true and now she could see it better than ever. She didn’t have a home, just a string of temporary shelters. She moved from one apartment to another, never bothering to even paint the walls the colors she liked, knowing all well that something will force her to move on soon enough. Only her work with SHIELD kept her here and now this tie was severed and there was nothing left.

She stayed in a surprisingly nice Airbnb in Brooklyn. The studio flat was small, but tastefully furnished, with painted brick walls and fluffy gray carpet covering the hardwood floor. No nineties décor in sight, no flowery curtains and there was no bed, just a convertible sofa, which meant more floor space. It even had air conditioning and she turned it on the moment she stepped though the doorway. She didn’t regret spending half of the money she has left to rent it for a week. She needed to find work soon anyway and saving the few hundred bucks wasn’t worth making herself miserable, again.

Besides, she deserved a treat from time to time and today was a special day, after all.

It was also the day she finally makes it. She could sense her core awakening slowly and tuning back on since the morning and the headache was just a dull afterimage after she pulled it out, so she felt ready for another go.

The carpet was as soft and lush as it looked, and she kicked off her boots and sat down, dragging over a couple of the oversized throw pillows from the couch to prop herself up in front of a full height window.

She closed her eyes and the trace shimmered on her eyelids, brighter than ever, welcoming her like a long-lost friend. She let it wrap around her, become one with her mind, share its energy.

It was like nothing she has ever felt before. She could feel her body solidly on the ground, sitting on the floor of the Brooklyn apartment, rooted in reality, while her mind was scattered among the stars, walking on the old paths, running along the filaments of the cosmic power, like a signal in a fiber wire.

It was freedom in its purest form.

The space roiled and changed and swirled around her with a brilliance of impossible colors. Then her mind snapped back into her body and she stood on a white ice plain and the low, heavy clouds stormed above her head.


	42. Ghosts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which a complicated question turns out to have a very simple answer.

Loki was kneeling on the ground, his shoulders slumped, his head down.

She called out, but he didn’t turn to her, didn’t move at all, didn’t even flinch. Her heart was pounding, and she ran.

She stopped a few steps away and it took all her will to do so, because all she wanted was throw her arms around him and never let him go. She didn’t. She had no right. It’s been months. She failed him. And now she was sneaking into his mind, uninvited. No matter that she had good intentions, it was still a violation. All she had the right to do was beg for forgiveness.

“Loki?” she said, softly. Her voice was trembling.

A gust of wind swept by, raising a swirl of fine snow into the air between them.

“Loki, please, look at me,” she whispered.

“I always liked the way you said my name. You made it sound like it’s not a curse,” he said vacantly. He turned to her and his eyes slowly focused. His brows furrowed. “You’re dead,” he said, his eyes just as empty as his voice.

“No, I’m not. Why would you say that?”

“You died, rescuing me. It wasn’t fair. You should have left me and saved yourself.”

“I’m not dead. I made it. It made me sick but I’m okay now.”

He nodded slowly, unconvinced.

“I don’t know what they’ve told you and I’m sorry, but I don’t have time to convince you. I can’t stay too long either.”

“You never can,” he said cryptically and offered her a wan smile.

Something in his tone made her skin crawl. “It took me a long, long time to reach you, so please, focus and talk to me,” she pleaded. “I need to know where you are.”

His eyes darted around, like it was the first time he noticed his surroundings. “Inside my head?”

“No, I mean in real life.”

“In hell.”

Her stomach lurched.

“Do you know where they are keeping you?”

The wrinkle between Loki’s brows deepened and his eyes narrowed, like he tried very hard to concentrate but couldn’t. “Somewhere deep,” he managed, “I think.”

“Can you tell me anything else, anything I could use to find you?”

He worked his jaw for a moment, before uttering, “ _Eihines_ …” There was a weird inflection in his voice, a hint of hesitation, too.

“Is that your mother tongue?”

He shook his head. The sky darkened and the wind picked up. “I have no mother,” he said and smiled at her and there was something absolutely heartbreaking in the smile. “I used to, but not anymore.” His features drew in and he chewed the inside of his cheek. “I can’t remember her face.”

“Is that how they call it then? The people who hold you? Do you know what language it is?”

Loki rolled his shoulders then shook his head again. “I shouldn’t be listening; it is not allowed. Do not tell them I told you.”

She blinked, but it didn’t help. “I won’t.”

“Thank you,” he said and smiled again.

“Do you know what that word means?”

He didn’t register her question, distracted with his hand. He raised it in front of his face and studied it curiously, twisting his arm and wiggling his fingers. It was obvious that there was something affecting him. Maybe they kept him under an influence of some kind of drug and it permeated his subconsciousness and clouded his self-image as well. Or maybe Hydra has achieved what years of abuse at Odin’s and Thanos’ hands could not, and his mind has finally snapped.

“Please, Loki, I know it’s hard, but do try to think. Is there anything specific about the place you’re in? How long are you in there?”

“A month, a century, perhaps forever?” He shrugged, took a deep breath – in through his nose and out through his mouth. “This is nice. You should come by more often.”

He stuck out his tongue. It was red with blood but he didn’t seem to notice. He let a snowflake fall into his mouth, then giggled. She never thought him even capable of giggling.

“I miss the light,” he added, unprompted.

She dropped to her knees and wrapped her arms around him. He didn’t startle or jerk away but didn’t ease up in her embrace nor reciprocated the gesture. It didn’t matter. “I’m coming for you, I promise,” she whispered into his ear.

“But you came, didn’t you?”

That was about as much as she could take. She didn’t want to leave, not yet – not _ever_ – but the risk was too great, the spell has already been triggered and she wasn’t helping, not at all. She pulled away, gave his arms the last reassuring squeeze, then closed her eyes and let the vision fade away.

\---

She pulled her legs to her chest and pressed her face to her knees, her fingers crumpling her clothes. She stayed like that, taking deep, deliberate breaths, until she ran out of tears and only the hollow pit in her stomach remained.

It’s been a year. A year, _today_. Three hundred sixty-five days since she brought them back, thinking the worst part was over. Three hundred sixty-five more marks on Loki’s wall.

She rubbed her eyes and ran her hand through her hair. It was almost as long as it was before Loki cut it on that beach and it felt like another part of their shared experience has slipped through her fingers and lost significance.

She was so small, so insignificant. A single person standing against impossible odds. All she could do was curl in a ball and wail out her desperation and helplessness.

It felt like an impossible endeavor, but she managed to drag herself up and make her way to the couch. She couldn’t give up. That was not even an option, not ever, and especially not now that she knew that he was still alive.

The finer details of the vision has started to slowly fade away, like dreams tend to do if one doesn’t focus on them after waking up so she replayed it in her head. She couldn’t let it slip away, no matter how much it hurt to remember.

Loki looked like he always did in his mind and it would be easy to convince herself that he was fine, physically. But the way he acted was impossible to ignore, it was all so unlike the Loki she knew. Even in their final moments on the island, when he believed there’s absolutely no way for him to get out of it alive, he acted more like the defiant, stubborn self. Now, it didn’t even feel like desperation. It felt like he just… gave up. That hurt more than anything else.

She turned every stone, pulled every string, crossed every bridge, and still came up with nothing. This was a last-ditch effort and it still gave her nothing but the confirmation of her worst fears.

Well, there was one thing. The one hint he gave her. That word, the one that Loki decided was important enough to smuggle for her.

 _Eihines_.

_What the hell does that mean?_

She didn’t recognize the root of the word, nor the slight accent Loki used to say it, that’s why she assumed it was the Aesir language, but it apparently wasn’t.

She grabbed her laptop. She didn’t hope for much, it wouldn’t be that easy, nothing in this last year was, but it didn’t hurt to try. She typed the word in the search engine and got a couple of close results, but no match. Then she checked in Greek alphabet, it did sound slightly Hellenic, but nothing. Then, just for the sake of exploiting all the possibilities, she tried Cyrillic. 

Еихинес. Sokovian word for a dungeon.

“Loki, you brilliant bastard,” she mouthed.

It all clicked into place, all at once. The “SK” in “SK-12” was a country designation. That’s why most of the money transfers broke trails without reaching any tax havens, that’s why Hydra was keen on using Soviet research as a basis for their own projects. That’s why the executives travelled to Lithuania or Poland but never really popped up in any major affairs in either of those.

Sokovia, a small, poor country in central Europe, with a troubled history of being plodded by two world wars, occupation, communism and civil unrest, and a stumbling economy that barely stayed afloat after USSR fell and the helping hand of Big Brother disappeared. No industry to speak of, no notable exports other than illegal immigrants, not a part of EU or any other important pact. The American dollar went a long way there and there was no oversight, because no one was afraid of what Sokovians might be cooking up, since the relationship with both the west and Russia was strained and there was no way for the country to get resources anywhere else.

Yep, a perfect spot for a base of operations of a secret organization. _Damn_.

Now she only needed to find the significance of the other part of Hanima’s hint. Was that where Loki was kept? It must be. Hanima deemed it important enough to leave it for Natasha, even after finding out she was trailed and removing everything else.

Fuck. Natasha should’ve figured it out earlier!

She took a deep breath. It was the time to act, she should be booking her flight to Europe right now. The thing was, she was out of money, hard. What she had left wouldn’t cover a plane ticket, not to mention a fake identity that would prevail under the scrutiny of boarding control in a commercial, intercontinental flight. Then she had no resources to continue her investigation at the site, hell, not enough to rent a hotel room or get a new weapon once she crossed the pond.

She needed to pick up a job first, but that most likely meant _weeks_ of further delay and that she also couldn’t afford. Not after seeing after she just witnessed. She had to do it and she had to do it _now_.

But she couldn’t do it alone.

She pulled out her phone and scrolled through the call registry. In vain. There was no one she could call there, just people that worked with her because it was convenient.

Without thinking, she put in Clint’s number then hesitated with her finger hovering above the screen. What could she tell him? How could she even begin to explain?

She tossed the phone away and it bounced on the sofa and fell to the floor.

There was a chance Clint would listen to her. That he would agree to help, for the sake of their friendship, their history or because he still cared or felt indebted to her in some way. That he would be able to look past his hurt and resentment. That he would see the merit of helping a person in need of help, even if that person was his enemy.

But there was also a chance he wouldn’t. And she couldn’t risk it. If it was something else, _anything_ else she needed, he would be the right person to call, no matter how much time has passed and how much animosity there was between them. But not with this.

She picked up the phone again. The screen has cracked and she stared at the lines for a long while, then her gaze fell on Stark’s name printed with silver letters on the top bezel.

Stark was still one of the bigger question marks on her dashboard. Not because he popped up in any of her queries or in any reports or audits, but because he _didn’t_. Not a single mention. Despite his enormous fortune and indubitable influence within government in general and military in particular, he never showed up anywhere, neither financing SHIELD’s hidden projects, providing materials, benefiting from questionable research, nor sponsoring the politicians leaning to the cause. After the public meltdown five years ago both the company and Stark privately steered clear of controversy and there was nothing but unsubstantiated rumors that the red top tabloids still loved to spread or minor clashes with labor unions.

Still, it took some ego, to put one’s name on every product in plain text, for millions of people to stare at every day on their phones or laptops or household items. And yet, it seemed to work for Stark’s benefit somehow, the brand awareness erasing the mishap with dropping weapons manufacturing branch overnight from public consciousness. The superhero status probably didn’t hurt either, but it was still quite a feat. Those were not easy, even if one had access to such resources, tech, money and important friends in right places.

If only she had any of those…

On a second thought, why not?

She thought about it before, but always dismissed it. Now, it didn’t sound like that bad of an idea. Sure, it was mostly because she exhausted all the better, safer routes already and was slowly running out of options, but it still wasn’t something that she should dismiss right off the bat. She couldn’t tell the man the truth, Stark has quite a significant personal stake in the matter and probably nurtured just as bitter grudge against Loki as Clint did, but there were still angles that could possibly work and could encourage him to spare a small financial aid to her cause. It would be a transaction, nothing more. She could trade her intel on Hydra, even including Pierce’s role in it, perhaps Stark would want to have this sort of leverage. He didn’t need to be personally involved at all, his money was enough, because money meant more resources, more people and better intel. Power. And that could be a game changer.

Now the question was – how does she contact a public persona who doesn’t want to be contacted, without raising any red flags and setting the chase back on her tail?

\---

Loki dreamt sometimes, when his body could take no more abuse and gave up, making his mind slip away into the mists of a restless slumber.

It was always the same dream, even though details changed from time to time. Sometimes it was the dungeons in Asgard, or SHIELD’s cell, or Eitri’s smithery, or the Other’s prison, or just some other dark and cruel place he couldn’t really recognize. The bonds were just as unbreakable, the darkness just as suffocating and the pain just as vivid each time. And each time he woke up to reality that seemed just marginally more real for the hunger that clutched his stomach, the thirst that pulsed like a living thing in his throat and for the cloying stench of disinfectant in the air that made his breath hitch from nausea.

The rest was always the same.

Not this one though. This one was different. This one was pleasant. The last lie his mind decided to tell itself before it finally crumbled and faded away, perhaps.

It was an alluring perspective.

\---

Stark was even harder to get in touch with than she anticipated. Not that she expected to find his private number online, but all the calls she made to his office under various pretenses just bounced off the very stern and adamant assistant: “Mr. Stark is not at the office right now, I’ll pass on the message and he would call you back if he finds your proposition interesting” or a variation thereof, with an implied “fuck off and never call us again” tackled on at the end.

It seemed that luring Stark out with business opportunities wouldn’t work, no matter who she pretended to be, she was too small of a fry or else Stark – or any of his advisors – would have heard of it. 

She tried appealing to his humanity next, introducing herself as a Make-a-wish foundation employee, which also got her nowhere. “Yes, Mr. Stark is generally willing to participate, please email us the detailed info, our Public Relations team will make appropriate arrangements.” At least that meant Stark wasn’t entirely indifferent to cancer kids’ fates, even if it was just to curry PR points and didn’t change anything for her.

No, calling just wouldn’t cut it.

There was Stark’s private email in his SHIELD’s file though. She wouldn’t risk accessing the database again just to retrieve it, but, luckily, she didn’t have to, “tstark@si.com” wasn’t that hard to remember. She wasn’t sure if he was the only one who read the mail – he most likely was not, if he was getting it at all, it was too obvious and there ought to be droves of folks who guessed it correctly and sent all sort of spam there – so she tried to be as vague as possible.

 _Hi_ , she wrote.

_It’s been a while since we talked and there’s a potentially interesting piece of trivia I’d like to share about one of the entities you consulted for in the past, for the old times’ sake. Feel free to contact me so we can arrange a meeting to discuss things privately._

_Yours truly,_

_N. Rushman._ 


After a moment of hesitation she added one of her burner numbers to the signature. It was a risk, but writing the email was a risk just as well if anyone was monitoring Stark’s correspondence in more than a cursory manner and she needed to give him something solid, something to catch his attention and an identification (as fake as it was, Stark should still recognize it or have no issues with finding her employee record) and a contact could do the trick.

\---

It was two hours later when her phone rang. She stared at the “unlisted number” marking the call then assessed her surroundings for a couple of seconds before answering. If it wasn’t Stark she would have only minutes to evacuate herself from her current whereabouts. Same was true if it was him and the talk didn’t go the way she would like it to. Or if she just grew suspicious for some reason, like Stark playing for time. She anticipated it though and her bag was packed and she could leave within thirty seconds.

“Hello?”

“So it is you, huh? What do I owe the pleasure?” Stark said, his usual flippancy marred by uncertainty and just plain, old curiosity in his voice. “I’ve heard you’re a busy woman these days.”

“You’re not that easy to contact yourself.”

“You’ve made it, congratulations. Now, what it is that you wanted to talk about?” he said, cutting straight to the point. “Because I assume it’s not about the weather. It’s boiling hot here in New York, by the way.”

“I know.”

There was a second of silence as he absorbed the information. “Come on, spill it, the clock it ticking and I’m not sure how long Jarvis will be able to keep the connection secure.”

She couldn’t say if he was telling the truth or if was just a way to placate her and lull her into a false sense of security. “I have a certain proposition that – if we came to an agreement – could benefit both of us,” she said cagily.

“Yeah, I guessed that part from the series of fake calls with business offers. So, what is it?”

“Not over the phone.”

“I told you…”

“I know what you told me. I’m still not going to discuss it over a telephone line.”

“Whatever,” he grunted. “Swing by the Tower then. I’m home the whole evening.”

“I’d like to meet on a more neutral grounds, if you don’t mind. Somewhere public,” she said. Somewhere that wouldn’t turn into a deathtrap the moment things went sour.

“No. My tower is the most secure place in the whole city. I’m not meeting a wanted criminal for a coffee in Starbucks, if that’s what you’re asking. Take it or leave it.”

“Fine,” she grounded through clenched teeth. “I’ll be over in an hour.”

“Take the viaduct off Park Avenue and drive straight into the private garage. I’ll have Jarvis open the gate for you.”

She didn’t say anything, considering her options.

“Romanoff?” Stark prompted.

“Why are you doing this?”

“I have a gut feeling it’s going to be entertaining. In the kind of way smoldering buildings and car crashes are entertaining,” he laughed then hung up.

\---

She circled around the Stark’s tower twice. She wasn’t sure what she was looking for – something suspicious, something to get her out of the idea, any hints to why Stark agreed so easily. Some units standing by, waiting for her to go in perhaps, unusual surveillance methods? He was smart and he was a businessman, there was no way he was doing that just because it “will be fun”. No way.

There was nothing out of the ordinary though and she headed into the underground parking in the end, just like Stark told her. The gate opened and closed behind her without delay and she drove down the aisle. Stark had an impressive collection of cars and most of the parking spots were dedicated to various models with a variation of his name on the plates, from new releases to vintage white crows that were made in single digits series and she was able to think of only one thing: a value of just one of those in cash could save Loki’s life. And Stark had hundreds.

She had to convince him, there was no other way. 

She parked her beat-up Corolla between a Lamborghini, one of those that went for three millions a pop, and some Tesla concept model that hasn’t been released yet. It still had all the protective films on and a gift card behind the windshield’s wipers. She didn’t need to look to know who it might come from.

“Mr. Stark is expecting you in the Penthouse on fifty-sixth floor,” the disembodied voice informed her as she entered the elevator. She pressed the button, but it wouldn’t budge. “I allowed myself to pick a destination for you, Miss Romanoff,” the AI said and the elevator started moving.

She sighed. What the hell did she just get herself into?

She didn’t even have a plan, just a loose idea and everything depended on how Stark reacted.

Oh well, there was no backing up now.

The elevator stopped and the doors slid open with a subtle ding.

The living room looked pristine, like nothing has ever happened here. The windows were fixed, all the destroyed furniture was replaced and there was no sign of the hole in the floor that Hulk made with Loki…

Not that she expected anything else. It was more than a year.

_Fuck._

“Mr. Stark is in the office. Down the hall on your left,” the AI provided and the double glass doors slid open, inviting her inside.

She walked along the hallway, trying to decide if she should knock or just go in. What would make the best impression and be a better starter? She didn’t get to decide though, as the door swung open when she was still a few steps away.

Stark sat reclined in an office chair, his legs up on the top of an enormous desk. “Agent Romanoff,” he said and returned to picking his nails with a golden letter knife. He was wearing a faded tee shirt with some band logo on it and there were grease smears on his hands, jeans and even one on his face, which made him look completely out of place in the sleek, spotless environment. It was obvious he didn’t use the room often and invited her here to make a certain impression. “Care to sit down?”

“It’s just Romanoff these days, Stark,” she said and took a seat. The guest chair looked expensive as hell, but was really uncomfortable, the back keeping her spine straight and the armrests too low to serve their purpose, forcing her to keep her hands in her lap, probably by design.

He put the knife down and studied her with a smirk. “Rough times?”

 _You have no idea_. “Could be worse,” she said. Should she thank him for meeting her? No, that would suggest he was doing her a favor and put her on a losing negotiating position. “On the other hand, you seem to be doing just fine. I’ve heard the cleanup business was a lucrative opportunity for your company.”

“Someone had to do it,” he said with a careless shrug. “But you’re not here to talk about how my business is doing, are you?”

“Not necessarily, but it may be a profitable liaison for you nonetheless.”

“Look at that, the kids, all grown up, using big words and all,” he sneered. “Come on, Romanoff, we fought aliens together, you can cut the crap and tell me what you want.”

She hesitated.

Stark sighted and pulled his legs off the desk. He looked tired, now. “I’ve looked you up after I got your message. Whatever they are accusing you of, it’s so top-secret it’s not even disclosed in SHIELD’s files.” He leaned on the desk. He was still far away. The piece of furniture might be bigger than some of the flats she rented in the past. “There’s just some stuff about a home invasion crime scene in Ohio with no casualties and that’s not enough to warrant the cross-department, coordinated manhunt or proclaiming you a public enemy. On the other hand, I found your testimony about what happened when you were gone _the_ _most interesting_. Another planet, huh?”

“It was a moon. What’s your point, Stark?”

“My point is, whatever it was that actually went down between you and your bosses at SHIELD had a lot to do with your excursion in space.”

“What makes you think that?”

“You had no assignments after you came back, you were never even cleared for action again. You were away for months and yet your testimony is like one page long, which means it was heavily censored, either by you or by someone who was responsible for processing it. You were not under an influence of mind control or deemed psychologically unstable or they would never let you go. So, my guess is, whatever you had to say after you came back rubbed someone the wrong way and now they are trying to control the damage. And you’re trying to wriggle out of it now and you need my help with that.”

It was dangerously close to the truth.

“You forgot to add ‘elementary, my dear Watson’ at the end.”

“Did you know he never says that in the books?”

She swallowed the annoyed grunt that threated its way out. “Let’s say you’re right. Let’s say I found out there’s a bigger, badder guy behind Loki’s attack on Earth and that he won’t stop just because we stopped the first wave. Let’s say SHIELD and the Council know about it, for months now, but they are unwilling to do anything, because there’s a force acting withing the government that prevents it from happening, because it would interfere with their wish to push a new Nazi world order. What if that’s an organization that’s been active since World War Two? That it’s been going on for years, right under our noses and that – once you find out – there are just two things that can happen: either you join or you die.”

“Well, I’d ask where did you come by such interesting piece of info.”

She pressed her palms to her thighs. “For the last year I’ve been gathering intel. Connections, names, places, money trails. And now I know where they operate from and who sits at the top. It’s real and it needs to be brought down, but I can’t do it. I can give you everything I’ve gathered. Every single piece of evidence. Every testimony. You can take all the credit and make yourself even more of a hero, or you can use it to further your own goals, whatever they are. All I ask in return is a small donation, so I could sort out some of my problems.”

Stark’s smirk died down and his expression turned serious. “How small are we talking about?”

“Five million,” she said. It was but a single grain in the silo of Stark’s wealth, but she knew he would negotiate anyway, he wouldn’t be a successful businessman if he didn’t. Starting the bargain high would allow the final agreed amount to land on the number she actually required.

“I see,” he said. “It’s all fine and dandy, but it still doesn’t answer the initial question. How did you find out about it?”

 _Fuck_. She needed an answer. Something that would sound believable. Something to convince Stark it wasn’t just all idle banter. It couldn’t be an outright lie, either, for Stark apparently had no issues with reaching into any repository of knowledge, whether it was granted to him or not. “I don’t want to endanger my sources until I know we have a deal,” she said, buying herself time.

“Nah,” Stark said nonchalantly, “I don’t buy it. You come to me with everything to gain and very little to lose. You got to give me something.”

She gritted her teeth. “Loki told me.”

Stark’s eyebrows rode up. “Did he, now?”

“Yes. We were alone for months on a desert moon. We talked, because there was nothing else to do. He told me what he saw in the mind of one of the SHIELD agents he controlled using the scepter. When I came back I started digging. I talked to the agent – he survived by the way and was in a mental hospital before they got to him – and he confirmed it. I followed the threads and the deeper I got, the more I discovered, until I got far enough to get their attention. They sent men to kill me, multiple times, including a brainwashed assassin,” she stood up and leaned against the table. “Yet, here I am and I’m really at the end of my rope. So either you take it or I’m leaving!”

Stark whistled. “You’re scary when you’re angry, Romanoff,” he said. “Fine. I’ll help you.”

“Thanks,” she said and sat back down.

“There’s still one thing I don’t get. If you really have all that evidence, why give it away? You could make it public to take them down, clearing your name in the process. You could trade it for immunity. Why come to me?”

She hated dealing with smart people, they were hard to fool and Stark might be the worst of them all. “There’s one thing I have to fix first,” she said tentatively. “It’s my fault it happened in the first place and I can’t make it right without resources. It has to be done before we do anything with the intel I’ve gathered. That’s my only stipulation. After that, you can do whatever you please.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t know how far the collapse could go and what the reaction could be. They might attempt to… destroy all the evidence and I can’t risk that happening.”

Stark crooked his head and stared at her for a moment. “Why is it so important?”

“I can’t…”

“Don’t give me that bullshit again, Romanoff. I already agreed to your terms, didn’t I? You can have your five mil, if that’s what you’re truly after. So, bring it on and let me see what we are dealing with here.”

“They are keeping people, Stark. As test subjects, prisoners, hostages, whatever you want to call it. They are conveying human experiments and torture people for... I don’t even know. For science, for sick satisfaction or just because they can. Here in US, in other places, too. There’s a…”

“Okay, who is it?”

“Excuse me?”

“Who is it,” Stark repeated and sat back in his chair. His expression was serious and Natasha was glad it was. She might have hard time stopping herself from punching him in the face if he was wearing one of those knowing smirks of his. “I can tell it’s personal.”

She could see the conversation was slipping from her fingers. Stark was dictating the terms now and there was no way to regain the control. The best she could do was keep a straight face and go with the flow. She reached for her phone and flipped though the emails, until she found the right one.

She couldn’t bear to look at the photo since she sent it to herself and seeing it now wasn’t any easier. But it was a proof. She handed the phone to Stark.

He looked at the screen and his eyes slowly narrowed, his nose wrinkled and he minced a curse. “Is that…”

“Yes.”

“Where was it taken? And when? He still has the…” Stark paused and gestured vaguely at his face without peeling his eyes from the screen and his expression was a mix of appalment and morbid curiosity.

“Almost a year ago, now,” she said somberly. “In a military base, in Ohio. And yes. The muzzle is protected by magic and cannot be taken off, unless it’s by Loki’s father or Thor.”

Stark put down the phone and pinched the bridge of his nose. “How…” he started and paused, lost for words, as the implications slowly unveiled in his mind. It was not a common sight with Stark. He sighed and turned his head and stared out of the window, over the city. The sun has set and the lights in buildings slowly came on. “Okay,” he said.

“Okay what?”

“I’m going to help you get mister world domination out.”

She blinked.

“I’m not a fan of… whatever this is,” he said, gesturing at the phone. “Is he still in Ohio?”

“No. He was transferred away the day this photo was taken.”

“Do you have anything more recent? Preferably not as… graphic?”

“No.”

Stark pursed his lips, pondering. “But you know he is still alive, right?”

Natasha sighed. “Yes.”

“You’re not too convincing,” he pointed out.

“I know he is alive. I just don’t know exactly where.”

“How ‘not exactly’ we are taking about?”

“I know which country.”

Stark scoffed.

“On a plus side, it’s a small country.”

“Monaco?”

“Not that small.”

“Are we playing hunt the thimble?”

“Sokovia.”

“Oh, great. I always loved those weird round dumplings they serve with everything there. Communism – not so much.”

“It’s a democratic country since like nineteen ninety-five.”

“Thank you for the invaluable geopolitics lesson, Romanoff. Now, you were saying something about people being tortured for science? You have anything more specific than an area of roughly six hundred square miles or was your plan to go door to door and ask?”

“I have a location designation, but I couldn’t find anything about it in SHIELD database and none of my informers was of any help. Given, I had just five minutes before they located me and I had to scram and I didn’t know which country it was, so I couldn’t narrow my search. And now I can’t access it anymore.”

“Luckily, I can. Jarvis?”

“How may I be of assistance, sir?” the AI asked and Natasha’s hand shot up to her holster before she realized what it was.

“You’re twitchy, Romanoff,” Stark jeered.

“Being a fugitive isn’t exactly a calming experience.”

Stark threw his hands out in a classical “what can you do” gesture, then turned to the camera in the corner, probably to let her know who he was speaking to. He didn’t do that before, so it wasn’t required. “Is that backdoor to SHIELD’s database still active or have they patched it already?”

“Let me check, sir.” There was a couple-second-long pause. “The exploit does not work anymore. Do you want me to find another?”

“Yeah, do that, Jay. Try CIA and NSA as well.” He turned back to Natasha. “What was that designation?”

“SK twelve,” she said.

Stark eyed her for a moment, as if he expected more to follow. “Got that, Jay?”

“Yes. I’ll get back to you once I find something, sir.”

“Thanks.”

Her hands furled and unfurled and she gritted her teeth, trying to keep the resentment in. It took her months to come by the smallest shreds of info and all Stark had to do was say a few words to his ceiling buddy.

“You could’ve come to me earlier, you know,” Stark said. Her poker face must not be as good as she thought.

She sighed. “Everyone seems to think Loki deserves everything he is getting. How was I supposed to know you’re not going to be the same? How I supposed to know you’re not _in_ on it?”

“I might not be the expert on morality or anything but there are boundaries I generally do not cross, Romanoff. Take Geneva Conventions for example. It took us a while to get those written and it was an outstanding move… Don’t get me wrong, I’m not going to let him out of my sight, but…”

“What?”

Stark crooked his head and narrowed his eyes. “I’m going to find some nice room that only opens from the outside, stash our alien conquistador inside and wait for either Asgard or at least some agency that can keep their hands to themselves to pick up their stray sheep. Isn’t that what you intended to happen? Because you can’t honestly ask me to unleash Invader Zim back on the world.”

Of course, she couldn’t expect Stark to react in any other way. It was still something and it would give her – and Loki, hopefully – an opportunity to convince him, the way she was convinced. She couldn’t turn away in anger. There was simply no better option, Stark’s cooperation and support gave her a lot more than just his money, even if it meant Loki was going to be rescued from one captivity only to immediately fall into another. No matter what Stark decided to do with Loki in the end, it couldn’t be as bad as what Hydra was currently doing. “No,” she grinded out. “I did not expect anything else.”

“Good we are on the same page,” Stark said cheerfully and tapped his fingers on his desk. “Now, what would you say to some Asian fusion? I’m starving.”

\---

She politely declined the offer. She left the tower half an hour later, armed with a brand new phone that Stark passionately assured her ran on his internal network and couldn’t be traced. She decided to use it at her own discretion but still took it, so he could contact her the moment Jarvis found anything.

Her rental flat didn’t look nearly as posh in comparison to Stark’s Tower. She shrugged and curled up on the floor.

She drifted among the stars in her dreams, but forgot everything by the morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> According to my headcannon, Sokovia is the Kaliningrad Oblast, that patch of land that in our world is a Russian enclave by the Baltic Sea, between Lithuania and Poland. In this continuity it gained independency when Soviet Union collapsed. Sokovian language is an amalgam of Lechitic and Uralic, similar to Estonian, but distinct, that’s why I get to make up words for it.


	43. We proudly go

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the kinks are smoothed out and all is seemingly good to go.

There was a flash of light, a bang and the little auxiliary stabilizer exploded, instantly filling the testing chamber with thick, acrid smoke.

“Jarvis, run the full ventilation routine for TC one,” said Tony, and rested his forehead against the cold surface of his lab desk. The room filled with low mechanical whirr and the air on the other side of the glass partition gradually cleared.

He expected that returning to his project would take the edge off the anxiety that was brewing at the back of his head since Romanoff’s visit yesterday but he miscalculated and to say the work progressed at a snail’s pace would mean giving himself too much credit. It was the third prototype that failed before it even fully charged.

Well, at least the backup power cells were solid. Just like Romanoff’s intel. She reluctantly left him an USB stick before leaving and Tony dedicated a portion of the processing capabilities of his personal server array for chewing the data and cross-referencing it with what he had already salvaged during his excursions to various databases. So far, everything checked out. The data was a piece of impressive investigative work. And a major headache.

Sure, Tony suspected Loki’s attack wasn’t a standalone show since the very beginning and sure, he knew a lot of things went down beyond the pretty faces of government agencies, he wasn’t born yesterday and since last year and finding out about SHIELD’s secret projects in the heat of the battle he decided to never allow himself be caught off guard with the shit Uncle Sam was pulling, ever again. Still, he already was doing everything he could to prepare for the former and what he found about the latter was nothing compared to _this_ , perhaps because the net he was casting was a lot wider or because he didn’t have Romanoff’s experience with secrets that had secrets on their own. This meant bad news and he didn’t yet think of a safe angle to handle it.

The fans stopped. “Do you require any further assistance, sir?” Jarvis asked.

“No, unless you know what I did wrong this time. That would be helpful.”

“I find no error in your calculations, sir”

Of course there was no error, he did and redid the numbers himself. But no error meant that he got the edge parameters wrong. He would have to redesign the whole bearing setup from scratch.

“Any news on the Loki front?”

“I found some mentions of the designation Miss Romanoff provided, but I still have to confirm it.”

“Bring it forth,” Stark said. The screens flashed to life and a couple of scanned documents appeared, some old, written in Cyrillic with a typewriter on a yellowed paper, some more modern, in English, quite a lot of it censored with black bars, sometimes to the point there were just a couple of words left on the page. Tony skimmed through the contents. There wasn’t much, mostly orders and freight bills and all that was left uncensored on them was some office and medical supplies, generic enough they could be coming from anywhere to anywhere. The black bar at the top of the sixth page caught his attention. It was one of the older files, and they were censored manually, using blackout markers, and whoever did it wasn’t very thorough, because some of the letters still showed.

“What’s that? Reteeck, Pelesck?

A recognition algorithm fired, comparing the outlines of letters to fonts in the rest of the document. “Polessk,” it issued a verdict and assessed its accuracy at ninety-five percent.

Tony turned to the search engine, and yep, bingo. Labiau, previously Polessk, returned to it’s original German name after USSR collapsed and Soviets left the area. A small town near the Baltic sea with a whole lot of twelve thousand inhabitants, a somehow still operational nuclear plant from seventy-two, on its merry way to becoming the next Chernobyl because the funding dried up in the nineties, a brewery, ruins of a thirteenth century Teutonic castle. And a vacated military base.

“Can we find more on that?”

There was a moment of silence as Jarvis queried the databases. “The Russian troops left the garrison in ninety-two and it’s been abandoned for ten years, until it was leased for a period of fifty years out to a foreign leaseholder under the name of Safe Future SSC.”

It sounded suspiciously like a bogus enterprise. “Do we know who stands behind it, truly?”

“I’m about to find out,” Jarvis said, “It appears to be a subsidiary of Department of Homeland Security, sir.”

“Well, fuck.”

\---

Romanoff didn’t argue when he told her to come over. She was eager enough and Tony spent the half hour it took her to drive from whatever hidey-hole she crawled into for the night (he could trace the phone he gave her but he didn’t, there was no need for now) to the Tower on wondering why. He came up with a couple of plausible answers, with the most obvious one being the one she gave him willingly already: she’s spent a lot of time with Loki, under what seemed like less than ideal circumstances. There ought to be some leftover bond there, no matter what piece of shit the guy was. She apparently blamed herself for the situation, so perhaps she was the one who brought him to justice, thinking SHIELD would treat him fairly. Well, if that was the case, it turned to be a serious miscalculation.

Jarvis announced Romanoff’s arrival just as she approached the garage. Tony wiped his hands in the grease rag and went to make himself another cup of coffee. Seriously, getting a coffee machine installed directly in the workshop was probably the most inspired decision he made designing the Tower.

“Tell me you found him!” she yelled, just as she walked though the door. Or strutted, more like.

“Coffee?” he offered.

“Depends on whether you’re going to raise my blood pressure with your news or not.”

“So, no?” Tony sniggered, then quickly added, before the scowl on her face turned into another angry outburst, “I found the location, but we might have a problem.”

“What is it?” Romanoff grunted.

He pointed at one of the monitors. She studied the satellite image of the base thoroughly before speaking. “It looks doable. The security doesn’t seem too extensive. That’s a long range scrambler, there,” she said, pointing at a blob on top of one of the buildings, “but we can work around that with using low frequency communicators. Those barracks look abandoned, so they are probably housing everyone in that new one here and it doesn’t look too big, so I’d say, couple dozen guards in two shift rotation then some personnel? Can we get a recent photo?”

“This is live. I moved one of my satellites to get a feed. It should update… just about now,” he said, and, as he did, the new image loaded. One of the cars disappeared and some dark dots moved around – guards taking their rounds.

She rolled her eyes. “Okay, so where’s the problem exactly?”

“Here,” he said and pulled up the classified document Jarvis got. “This is the founding document for Safe Future SSC, and that signature here is by then-current vice director of the DHS. And here’s a lease for the base, just a month later. Same name.”

“It’s US government funded facility,” she said and frowned. “So what?”

“Uhm, in case you didn’t notice by now, I quite like my life of luxury and I’m not looking forward to exchanging it for a cell anytime in the immediate future. I’m already helping one public enemy in breaking out another from prison. I don’t need another crime to add to that list. Like invading a military outpost of my own home country.”

“So what? You’re backing off?”

“No. But I do not intend to risk being caught and we need to do it right or I’m not doing it at all. We can’t drag any more people into this, the less witnesses the better, we will also need a mode of transportation that couldn’t be linked to my name, can be operated by one person and can cross international borders undetected. I’ll also need some time to modify my armor for it to not be instantly recognizable in case I’m caught on camera.”

“I can get us a Quinjet,” she said. “What else do you need?

“Jarvis is working on the plans of the facility. He found some already, but they are old. It turns out the base was originally built by the Germans in the thirties and only then appropriated by Soviets after they took control of the territory after the war. I got the original plans, but nothing on the upgrades and additions yet. And hell, the original Nazi bastards had some panache, it runs like fifteen stories down.”

“Do we know what’s down there?”

“Used to be bunkers and emergency provisions storage. Munitions, too. Some labs on the upper floors. Now? No idea, but I do have a few guesses…”

“Yeah.”

Tony stretched his arms and swiveled around in his chair. “Now, where do you intend to get that jet?”

\---

The March Air Reserve Base in Riverside, California was not the best guarded place in America and the chain link fence around its perimeter was far from the most secure anti-trespass measurement Natasha has ever seen.

“You’re in?” Stark’s voice screeched in her ear.

“Yep.”

“You sure you don’t want me to deploy the drone?” he asked, for what must be the fourth or fifth time in the last hour.

“No, Stark, I don’t need your toys drawing attention to me,” she snarled under her breath. She had better, less obnoxious ways of scouting her way. Not that Stark knew that, but she suspected his insistence stemmed less from his eagerness to help and more from the fact that he wasn’t used to not being the star of the show and having to watch from the sidelines. Or just from plain old boredom.

“Okay, I-Spy, but don’t complain if you’re ambushed from behind,” he said and chortled to himself. Natasha rolled her eyes. Stark could go from full-on serious business mode to a thirteen-year-old with ADD in a span of three seconds.

“I won’t,” she ground out though her teeth. “Better worry whether that script of yours will work.”

“It’s a rootkit, Romanoff,” he said, sounding slightly offended, “I wrote it myself.”

“Should I be reassured by that?”

“Elon might be a great guy, but his coding skills are not nowhere near my level. I’d give him a few pointers, but… It will work, trust me.”

She shook her head and peeked over the concrete barrier at the end of the airstrip. There was noting but five hundred feet of open space between her and the target. She took a deep breath, stood up and ran.

“Not that one!” Stark yelled in her ear. “Take the one on the left, it’s the upgraded version.”

She grunted and turned. He did deploy the drone after all. She dove down and slid under the belly of the aircraft, then pushed Stark’s card into the panel by the cargo hatch. “Now what?” she breathed.

“Give it a second, I need to… yep.” The cargo door slid open. “Happy trails, Romanoff.”

She plopped down on the pilot seat, put on the headset and flipped the switch on the console. The displays came on and the panel buttons slowly lit up. Another few buttons and the engines wound up and roared to life and the locks on the landing gear lifted with pneumatic hisses.

“Air control tower to unknown aircraft on runway three-two-A,” said a woman’s voice in the headphones. “Identify yourself.”

She muted the microphone. “Stark? Why can’t they recognize their own plane?”

“I might or might not have replaced the manifest with a quote from a Jurassic Park movie.”

Natasha snorted and pushed on the side stick. The flight controller requested identification again, then proceeded with a warning of sorts, but Natasha wasn’t interested enough to listen what exactly it was.

“Okay, the rat is in and the gps tracking is off. You can get the hell out of there,” Stark said. Natasha didn’t need to be told twice. She pulled on the yoke and the plane peeled off the ground with a jerk and ascended. She got it to a couple feet above the asphalt then pushed forward, gliding over the rest of the runway, above the fence, then the open field.

Sure, she could do it all by herself but it was just so much easier with Stark’s support and she wasn’t going to complain, not at all.

Flying felt just as amazing as she remembered.

“They are chasing you,” Stark said, surprisingly calm.

“And?”

“Keep close to the ground and head for the valley up North. And turn on the retroreflective panels once you’re past the town.”

“The what?”

“The camouflage, Romanoff.”

“I know what it is, but since when do Quinjets have that?”

“About this time last year?”

Well, that would explain it.

There were two jets on her tail, slowly gaining in. She put the engine on full throttle, the exhaust ruffling the treetops below.

“You just broke the sound barrier thirty meters over a residential area,” Stark informed cheerfully.

“Shut up. They will be fine.”

“Their eardrums might not be.”

“I wish mine weren’t, right about now.”

“I don’t recall your tongue being that sharp the last time around. Morbo the Annihilator has rubbed off on you, didn’t he?”

It was a little, benign jeer but it hit her like a battering ram, stunning her momentarily.

“Romanoff?” Stark cued. “You still there?”

“Yeah.”

“They are still on you. They got a green light to shoot you down.”

“Watch me!”

She throttled the engines, swayed to the side and sharply turned into an arm of the valley. She killed the boost and turned on cloaking. The oldest trick in the books, it might be, but it still worked. Not two seconds later the jets passed by, just a few hundred yards from where she was sitting.

“Good job,” came over the voice link. “I’m taking my ass out of here before they go back. See you at the mansion.”

\---

Quinjet hovered over Stark’s impressive Malibu home as Natasha waited for the roof over the landing pad to open, watching the sun rise over Santa Monica. She didn’t want to look at the ocean.

She checked and rechecked the maintenance report of the Quinjet system, then, after finding nothing out of order, inspected the vehicle visually, to a very similar end.

 _There’s nothing wrong with the plane_ , she told herself. _It’s all going to be fine._

It wasn’t about the plane, of course.

Stark was a decent guy. He agreed to help because he found the idea of torture repulsive, not because he had a hidden, ulterior motive and wanted to exploit the situation to his own benefit. He would treat Loki fairly. He would give them a chance to explain.

_It’s all going to be fine._

And, maybe, if she kept on telling herself that she would finally be able to believe it.

\---

Stark’s tires screeched on the driveway less than two hours later, which meant he was speeding most of the way. He walked in, leaned against the column dividing the kitchen from the living room area, stashed his hands in his pockets and glared at her with a quizzical smile.

She just got out of the shower – after she finished swimming in Stark’s pool (why build an outdoor pool when there’s an ocean just on the other side of the banister was beyond her, but it was there, so she took use of it) – and she sat wrapped in one of the fluffy bathrobes with an S embroidered with a golden thread on the chest she found in the bathroom closet, sipping iced coffee. The walk-in shower _was_ bigger than some of the flats she rented in the past.

“Sooo… you come here often?” he quipped.

“Fuck off, Stark. I’d still have half an hour if you weren’t driving like a madman.”

“Made yourself at home, I see.”

“Don’t act like you give a shit.”

Stark laughed and shook his head, came over to stand on the other side of the bar then leaned in on the counter. “I finished the new armor design yesterday,” he said. “It’s manufacturing as we speak and should be ready by the afternoon. I need a quick test ride and, if all goes well, we can go tomorrow.”

“Why not today?”

“Well, we still need to go back to New York first because the armor is there, then wait for it to finish which wouldn’t be done before five, four-thirty if I skip the flourish, then at least thirty minutes for a quick test run. Then we need to compensate for the time shift, which is six hours between US west coast and Sokovia, then the flight time – if we average eighteen hundred klicks per hour, which should be doable if the weather isn’t too bad, it’s two hours thirty, give or take. We would be there at, what, two in the morning?”

“That’s good enough. It gives us at least three hours before sunrise and four before the shift changes,” she said. “Let’s go today.”

He regarded her with a frown for a long moment. “Okay,” he yielded. “I’m off to hit the hay then if I’m not to be completely useless. Debrief at noon?”

“Sure.”

He turned to leave then stopped. “You should get some shut-eye too,” he said and waved his hand. “There are guest bedrooms upstairs, just pick whichever you like.”

She gave him a curt nod and he left. Then she sat there for long minutes, watching the ice melt in her glass. They were really doing it, after all this time.

All this time.

She only hoped it was not already too late.

\---

“Okay, so this is what we know,” Stark said and waved his laser pointer around. The screen chanced, showing a cross section of the base. “This here is the only unaccounted for section of the compound.” He pointed at the lowest level. “It runs on a completely separate subsystem and gives off no feed to the outside, so this is where I need to go.”

It wasn’t anything they haven’t gone through multiple times already. The turn of phrase was new though. “You? What about me?”

“You’re staying in the jet. We need to…”

“What? That’s out of the question!” she protested. “I’m going in. That’s not negotiable!”

“Romanoff, be reasonable. There are only two of us and one needs to stay to cover the rear. And which of us, A, can fly, B, wears an almost indestructible armor? Do you really think you have a better chance to get out of this alive than me?”

 _Yes_ , she wanted to say but bit her tongue before the word tumbled out. Because, as much as she didn’t want to admit it, Stark was right. There were only two of them. It wouldn’t only be way too risky for them both to go in, leaving their retreat uncovered, it would also mean that if they got caught there would be no one left who would… know. Her staying behind as backup was a strategically sound approach and she couldn’t question it just because she wanted to feel useful. Not after seeing what mess that mindset put her in the last time.

She still had to put all her willpower into the nod.

“Great,” Stark grinned. “Which leads us to the next question: how am I going to stop Count Monte Christo from trying to murder me on sight the moment I let him out of his cage?”

Natasha sighed and screwed her eyes shut. “He won’t. Just… just tell him you’re with me. He will cooperate.”

“Your faith is astonishing, not gonna lie, but…”

“I just know, okay? You don’t have to worry about it. He might not trust you, but he won’t fight you as long as you don’t attack him.”

Stark stared at her, rubbing his hand against he nape of his neck.

“If something goes wrong just get me on the line,” she added.

“Well, that’s another issue. That won’t be possible, most likely. The scrambler you so skillfully identified is just the top of the iceberg, there are similar devices all across the facility. I have no idea what they are cooking down there, but they really don’t like the idea of the smell of it getting out on any way. There are signal scanners too, so if I’m not able to use their own networks to broadcast, I won’t be able to reach you until I’m out and there’s like seven layers of subsystems and I’ll have to crack it one by one as I’m moving though, just to link to the CCTV system.”

“You think that’s even possible to do? Without them finding you out?”

“Should be. I’ll have an offline instance of Jarvis with me, I added proper modules to the suit central processing unit, he should be able to deal with most of the tedious work.”

She nodded. Fuck, there was no way she would be able to do _that_ alone.

“Romanoff? Loki can’t speak with the…” he made a gesture at his face, changed his mind halfway though and scratched his chin. “Right?”

She shook her head.

“I assume you found a way? What is it? Writing?”

“I taught him sign language, but I’m not sure how…”

The relief on Stark’s face was palpable. “That’s no issue. I’ll just update Jarvis database and he can act as translator.”

She nodded in agreement.

There was a moment of a very uncomfortable silence.

“Stark?”

“Yeah?”

“Just… don’t hurt him, okay?”

“You’re more worried about _me_ hurting _the alien who threw me out of my own window_ than the other way around?”

“Yes.”

Stark sighed heavily and looked at his wristwatch for salvation. “We should wrap this up and go. We can smooth the kinks out on the way.”

\---

“Want to witness my genius in action, Romanoff?”

“This is how you’re calling it?”

Stark snorted and struck a pose. For a couple of seconds nothing happened, he just stood there, with a boastful grin on his face and with his arms out in the classical Jesus-of-Rio stance. Then there was a rattle from the hallway, the staircase door flap broke off the hinges and projectiles flew from the now clean opening towards Stark, slowing down just as they reached him.

Those were armor parts, she realized, just as the pieces attached to Stark’s forearms, calves, chest and lower back, then started unfurling around him. It looked less like a machine and more like a living organism, the plates shifting and falling to places, adjusting and reacting to Stark’s moves. She stared, mesmerized.

It was obvious, now, what he meant by “major redesign” – it didn’t look like any of Stark’s suits she has seen so far. First of all, it was black, mostly, mixed with bits of dark gray around the helmet and a lot less bulky, looking less like the cumbersome exosuits he used before and more like an actual armor, especially with the reactor covered, like it was now.

The helmet folded back into the neck guard, revealing Stark’s face, still grinning. “So? What’s the verdict?”

“Impressive,” she said, keeping her voice neutral. Stark was full of himself as it was and he didn’t need further encouragement. “But did you really need to break the door for dramatic effect?”

“I was checking if it would work,” he chuckled. “That what ‘testing’ means.”

It’s a wonder the building was still standing then. “It doesn’t look as sturdy as your other suits,” she pointed out. “Wouldn’t that be an issue if we run into trouble?”

“I’m using a new alloy, that’s why it called for a wholly new design. Fifty percent lighter, with only ten percent loss in tensile strength, similar bending resistance and some minor gains in shear and compressive strength,” he boasted, then – seeing her undecided look – he added, “which means it’s as good as it gets. It will be fine.”

“Great. Let’s go.”

\---

“The basement is like, what, forty thousand square feet? How do you intend to check it all?”

“I don’t. We can’t hook to the subsystem from the outside but once I bring Jarvis in, he can scour it for me. They ought to have some internal records, no way an operation with so many people runs on the word of mouth.”

“Are we sure the route you charted will be clear?”

“Should be. The way the staircase is located away from anything important makes me think it’s not often used, since the elevators are way more convenient.”

“I don’t like the odds of ‘probably’, Stark,” she muttered.

“Relax, Romanoff. We will figure this out. We have an advantage, they wouldn’t even know we were there until it’s too late and I still have some awesome tricks still up my sleeve."

She didn’t answer. They should’ve spent more time on the planning phrase, it was too shoddy, too risky, too dependent on a blind chance… But every hour they wasted on deliberation meant another hour of torture for Loki and she couldn’t allow that to happen, either. There was just no good call here.

“Don’t worry,” Stark said, “we will get him out. It’s going to be just fine.”

She nodded, her eyes still fixed on the distance behind the windshield. It was even less convincing than it was when she tried to tell that to herself.

\---

“That place there, behind the trees,” Stark said, pointing his gauntleted finger at the screen. They were hovering just below the line of clouds, while the Quinjet’s radar system scanned the area. Stark put on his armor half an hour earlier and spent the time running a system check. “It’s close enough and that ridge should cover the boosters as we descent. If you keep the panels on you shouldn’t be spotted even if someone flies by.”

“Do we have enough charge for that?” she asked, checking the energy cell status. It was at fifty percent already, just from flying over the ocean, and the cloaking was extremely energy hungry.

“Should be fine, I won’t be gone for more than two hours, so that would leave us with… twenty two megajoules? We wouldn’t be able to go as fast, but we should still make it back to New York.”

“It’s a small margin.”

“Don’t worry, if everything else fails, I still have a backup,” he said and tapped his chest. “This baby could power five of those at the same time.”

She nodded, turned on the cloaking and started the approach. She switched to manual controls and the plane rocked haphazardly.

“Steady now, that birch tree there looks sturdy,” he warned.

“I know, Stark,” she snarled and adjusted the flaps. The descent equalized. “There we go.”

The plane settled down and she engaged the pneumatic locks.

“Smooth,” he judged. He got up and curled his hands into fists. The helmet unfolded around his head. “Okay then,” he said, his voice carrying a mechanical tint now, as it was amplified by the suit’s speakers. “Here we go.”

The hatch opened and Stark stepped out.

“Good luck,” she whispered.

“Who needs luck if you’re as awesome as we are?” his voice replied in the comm-link. “I’m closing in on the scrambler’s range. Over and out.”

The communicator went silent and she sat there, staring at the screen, watching the dot – Stark’s gps marker – move away from her and towards the base. She closed her eyes and explored. She brushed past Stark first, still moving forth, then the guards in the security building by the gate. She went on, level by level, deeper into the bowels of the Earth, ignoring the energies swarming inside, looking for the specific one. And there it was, right at the very bottom. She could barely make it out, now, so far away and so… faint.

She released her scrutiny.

Stark was going to make it.

He had to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The sturdy birch tree joke for the reading pleasure of my Polish readers.


	44. Unearthed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which things start to look up for once.

Penetrating the perimeter was a piece of cake when one could just fly over the fence. Tony congratulated himself the idea of adding the booster covers, the thrust loss was minimal and it was just so convenient. Not flashy though, that’s why he knew the feature won’t make it to his next, not stealth-oriented designs.

He stayed by the wall, allowing Jarvis time to scan the crisscrossing signals.

“I’m in the main network, sir,” the AI informed after a moment. “But I won’t be able to access any of the subsystems until we get in range.”

“Sure thing. Can we disable surveillance over the entrance?” The doorway was located in a length of concrete wall that created one of the sides of a grassy mound, a good hundred yards away from the closest building.

“Of course, sir. I’m looping the signal now.”

Tony smiled to himself and walked through the yard like he owned the place.

\---

The side exit lead straight into the evacuation staircase and – just as he expected – it was deserted. No one of sound mind takes thirty flights of stairs when they can use an elevator.

He reached level minus ten before he ran into the first sign of trouble. In the form of… well, a doorway. The staircase ended there and there was just the reinforced door leading onto the level. The oldest designs they found had it ending where he stood, but all the newer ones showed it running all the way down to the technical floor, so Tony quickly assumed it was a modification done to the original plans during the construction. Too quickly, apparently. It didn’t look like it was blocked later, the further part was just never constructed.

“Jay, any idea why I’m seeing what I’m seeing?”

“My best assessment would be that the plans were falsified to hide the fire safety concerns, sir.”

“Yeah, that’s what I’m thinking. Fucking Nazis.”

“If I may suggest a solution sir, level six is currently under reconstruction for a new purpose. It should be empty at this time of the night.”

“Does it connect to other staircases?”

“The main one, by the elevator shaft, and it has a ramp leading up into the hangar bay, sir.”

That wouldn’t cut it. It was too close to the hub and there ought to be people there. “What about the auxiliary one leading to the mechanical rooms?”

“According to the original plans it starts on your current level. The new ones show it running two floors up, sir.”

“Let’s assume, for now, that it’s bullshit as well. So this floor is the only way to reach it?”

“Not necessarily. There’s that unused fueling shaft, leading to a mechanical room on minus fourteen, the one we disregarded because it ends before it reaches the surface and has no access point nowhere in the facility.”

“We’re sure it’s there?”

“It is on the original plans, sir.”

Okay, that should do.

\---

Tony scaled the staircase, going one floor up. Jarvis’ scouting showed minus ten was operational with staff in positions, and that wasn’t something Tony wanted to deal with, if he had other options.

“This is the place, right?” Tony said, consulting the plan he brought up on his HUD. He pulled the shelf aside. The wall was just cast concrete, like all the other outside walls.

“It appears so, sir,” Jarvis confirmed.

“Okay, let’s see,” he said and activated his beam. He cut a small piece of the wall, just big enough to put his hand through and pushed it inside. It tumbled down the shaft, crashing down to the bottom and Tony sincerely hoped no one heard that. Then he cut a bigger opening and pulled the wall inside. It resisted, but yielded when he fired the booster on his hand.

Tony stuck his head inside, lighting his way with the propulsor on his palm. Even with that he could see only a few feet down. The shaft was narrow and the walls were uneven and shiny with accumulated moisture seeping from the ground for decades. There was a solid chance he was the first person to look inside since the day it was built eighty years ago.

He initiated the hover mode and went into the shaft, then started slowly descending. Just a dozen feet below the entry point he met his first obstacle, a crisscrossing wooden beams blocking the way, but the laser ray took care of it quickly. He continued downwards.

A pebble fell from above and bounced off his helmet, then another, quickly after the first one. Then came some bigger pieces and something that looked like muddy dirt cascaded down the wall. _Uh oh_. Then a piece of concrete in the size of his head flew by and he had to dodge to avoid it.

He killed the propulsors and fell down the shaft, bracing for landing. He expected to boost through, but the bottom slab held – courtesy of the lower weight of the armor. He cut around with his beam, more debris falling around. He came crashing into the room on top of a piece of concrete slab. Propulsors fired and he swerved out of the way, just in time, because a rumble of crushed concrete, rusted rebar and slurry dirt came down the shaft, burying one of the electrical substations and damaging a couple other ones. The lights blinked out.

“Jarvis?”

“I killed the failure alarm system before you came through the ceiling, sir.”

The backup generators whirred to life and the lights came back on.

“Thanks, Jay. What would I do without you?”

“I’m going to assume that was a rhetorical question, sir.”

Tony regarded the pile. “Here goes our exit strategy,” he said. It wasn’t all that viable anyway, the shaft would be hard to fly up through even on his own, and more so while hauling another person along. And that was only if he didn’t need to restrain Loki to force him to cooperate. He didn’t want to do it, but Romanoff seemed biased, so he had a hard time trusting her assurances in that regard. The eventuality was not out of the question and Tony came prepared, if that turned out necessary.

He turned to the backup generators. Those were the old, gas powered ones and Tony couldn’t help but admire the bravery of the engineers who designed a gas backup power setup so deep underground. Hopefully it wasn’t petroleum gas, that would be problematic. How was the air delivery for combustion solved? There ought to be fans to get it, they couldn’t rely on natural ventilation that far underground, surely, but how would they work without power in the first place? Some sort of tertiary system or did they not take full power loss under consideration?

He shook his head. It wasn’t important. As long as those babies didn’t run out of juice while he was here, he couldn’t care less.

“Okay, so where to, now?”

“I’m inside the detention level subsystem, sir. I’ve located Mr. Odinson’s cell. Do you want to me to display the feed?”

“No, just lead the way.”

\---

Tony crossed the threshold of the dungeon – heavy metal door closing behind him with a piercing shriek – and stopped dead in his tracks. He might have even tripped over his own feet if the servos in the greaves didn’t whirr to life to compensate for the sudden halt.

The cell was just a square of untreated concrete, fifteen or so feet wall to wall in both directions and half this to the highest point of the vaulted ceiling, still showing the grooves left by the formwork used to cast it when the base was built somewhen in the thirties. There was no furnishings other than the steel platform in the middle of the room, its legs bolted fitly into the floor, with an industrial lamp emitting cold, fluorescent light right above.

There was a person on the table.

Tony knew for sure he wouldn’t recognize him if he didn’t know who he was looking at.

Loki was lying flat on his back, thick metal manacles pinning down his arms, legs and neck, leather straps holding down his chest and hips. His mortifyingly thin form was wrapped in scraps of a tattered, worn-out prison garb, cut open in areas where his jailers needed an access to his body, for reasons Tony immediately decided not to dwell upon. The visible parts of his flesh – feet, hands, one exposed shoulder and lower arm, the side of his abdomen – were sickly pale, the skin pulled taunt over the bone, at least in places that were not open wounds or swollen bruises. A tangled mess of matted hair spilled around his head like tar.

Tony stared in shock and the longer he looked at the battered figure, the sicker and angrier he felt. He might not have the best record on ethics and Loki was an alien, his adversary and a hardened criminal, but… fuck, there were fates Tony wouldn’t wish even for the worst enemy. And this? This checked all the fucking boxes. 

An unmarked drip bag was hooked to a pump, forcing the unknown liquid into the central line under Loki’s collarbone and Tony didn’t even want to speculate what it might contain. He just hoped it was meant to provide at least some nutrients, because, yeah, the muzzle Thor slapped onto his lil brother’s face _sixteen fucking months ago_ was still sitting just as tightly on it, except now the metal was not nearly as shiny as it was originally, old blood and grime staining the indents and seams.

It wasn’t what sent Tony’s stomach churning and made him see red though. Nor it was the fact that Loki did not react to his arrival in any way but stayed motionless, unconscious, or perhaps dead already. It wasn’t even the second set of shackles and a thick chain pulled taunt between Loki’s ankles, absurdly redundant, considering the firm grip of the bands strapping his legs to the table. No, it was the blindfold, a simple strip of rough, dark cloth placed over his eyes, that pushed the whole image beyond cruel and inhumane and straight into the perversely evil zone.

They locked him up in a hellhole two hundred feet below the ground, bound him, starved him, sunk their needles into his flesh and who the fuck knows what else, yet they couldn’t bear to look him in the eye.

Tony could almost feel the rough burlap wrapped around his own head, no matter how hard he tried to not think about it right now. It was the worst thing he remembered from the Afghan cave, the uncertainty and the anticipation of the unknown somehow worse than the pain and torture itself, at least in his memory. 

Loki’s chest rose and fell, a change so minute that Tony wouldn’t notice it if the sensors didn’t alert him to the movement. The man was still alive then and Tony realized that he was, hopefully, not too late. He couldn’t find it in him to rejoice at the discovery though.

“Jarvis, change the mission classification from ‘prisoner transfer’ to ‘hostage recovery’,” he whispered, all the leftover doubt evaporating from his thoughts. He stepped closer, opening his visor. Cold, stale air hit his nostrils, filled with an acrid smell of an industrial disinfectant, not entirely able to mask the stench of sweat, blood and just pure misery that permeated the cell.

“Already on it, sir,” Jarvis chirped. “I’m working on gaining the access to the control panel for the restraints. It seems to be located inside the cell but needs to be enabled first.”

“Thanks,” Tony muttered and looked around. There was a small screen built into the wall next to the door, obviously a newer addition. It was dead and it did not react when Tony tapped it with his gauntleted finger. “Keep me updated.”

“Will do, sir,” the AI responded and fell silent, switching the line of communication back to the DHS’ server array. Or was it Hydra’s? Tony was not sure where the distinction lay at that point and did not particularly care. They could all go to hell.

Tony took another step forward, his titanium-osmium-alloy-clad boot scratching the floor. Loki’s jaw twitched and he stirred, his limbs straining against the bonds. Then he lifted his head, just an inch or so off the table, the metal band around his throat holding him down and preventing further movement. He twisted his neck as if to look at the intruder, but the thick cloth sat over his eyes firmly and Tony suspected even the alien super-sight was no match for it. 

He commanded the armored glove off. It folded into the vambrace neatly, leaving the propulsor and its wiring on his palm. He pulled the blindfold off.

Loki squeezed his eyes shut in an instant; the fluorescent illumination had to feel harsh after who knows how long of seeing only darkness. He tried opening them, just for a split-second, before the light blinded him again.

Tony reached inside the lamp and twisted one of the tubes around until it came loose and went off. He repeated the process until only one bulb was still glowing.

“Try now,” he said.

The second attempt went a little better, Loki squinted and blinked a few times, gradually getting used to the – now considerably diminished – brightness. Then the green eyes slowly focused and surveyed Tony for a long while, slanted and bleary at first and growing wider and more aware as recognition creeped its way into Loki’s gaunt features. He swallowed, hard, and his body recoiled, like the simple action caused pain. It might have just as well, the skin on his neck was one open wound and the manacle fit so tightly his bobbing throat was scratching against it.

Loki let out a resigned sigh and his head rolled back with a clank. His eyelids fluttered close and he stilled again.

“Chill, Buttercup, I come in peace,” Tony said, flashed a sheepish smile and, without further ado, started undoing the straps. Loki winced when Tony pulled on the belt running across his chest to release the buckle. “Hold on, just one more.”

He unfastened the second strap and gave the cuff around Loki’s skinny wrist an experimental wiggle. The U-shaped piece of steel-like alloy trapped the limb flat against the surface without any give, palm up, not allowing Loki to even rotate his arm, the ends sunken and locked under the tabletop, out of view. It wobbled slightly and the spurs ratchetted inside the mechanism under the weight of Tony’s hand, latching even tighter and getting a sharp exhale out of the Asgardian when the edges bit deeper into his chafed, bruised skin.

“Sorry, that wasn’t on purpose.”

The glare Loki sent his way was quite impressive, all things considered.

Tony tried again, making sure to just pull on the cuff instead of forcing it further down, without much effect. And once again, with his other hand that still had the armored glove on, actuators buzzing. Metal whined under stress and bent, pinching the sides of Loki’s hand, and forcing another flinch out of him. Tony stopped; he was doing more damage than good like that. Ripping the shackle off should be the last resort anyway; he was an engineer, not a brute, as much as his hands itched to just tear every single wretched piece of equipment in the torture chamber to scraps. And then to just go on, until there’s nothing left of the entire base other than a smoking crater in the ground.

“Jarvis, how’s progress?” he prompted. Loki’s eyes darted around the room in confusion but, of course, found no one Tony might be talking to. His eyebrows pulled into a tight frown. Tony tapped the communicator in his ear as a way of explanation, but it didn’t ease Loki’s uncertainty. He seemed pretty out of it. 

“I’m accessing the internal control system for the detention block as we speak, sir.” Jarvis reported. “And if I may offer a suggestion, I would advise removing the IV line as soon as possible. The logs mention the test subject is to be kept under sedation at all times.”

“Right…” Tony mumbled. _The test subject._ The very term grated at him in all the wrong ways, providing a lot more backstory to the scene before his eyes than the words alone contained. He stepped around the table. Loki’s left arm had another set of shackles of yet a different design clasped on it. It appeared to serve no other purpose than to add to the wholesale discomfort, which, at this point, wasn’t anything Tony would put past Loki’s caregivers. Above the metal, the flesh was dotted with track marks and smaller bruises from injections around them, up until the elbow, where the marred skin hid under the frayed edge of his sleeve. Green eyes traced Tony’s every move. “I’m going to unhook the IV now. Is that okay?”

He was not sure what made him ask, just as he didn’t know what he would do if Loki said no. It felt like the right thing to do, Loki’s usual company probably didn’t ask for permissions.

The god stared at him for a moment longer and then inclined his head, just a little bit. It was enough for Tony. He retracted the second gauntlet and reached to remove the tube from the port, then hesitated. A central catheter like the one on Loki’s shoulder was typically connected directly to a major artery above the heart. Tony’s medical expertise was too lacking to determine what would happen if he just removed the tube. Was there a non-return valve built into the port? Should he plug it? He looked around briefly, but there was nothing suitable for the purpose, so he just closed the shut-off valve that sat on the tube and ripped the other end from the pump. The device jammed and started wailing. Tony gave it another quick glance, making sure it’s not connected to any external system, then simply ripped it off the bar it was fastened to and threw it at a wall. It was a stubborn contraption though and the high-pitched alarm didn’t stop until he stomped the remnants with his boot for a good measure. That scratched the itch for destruction a tad. “That will have to do for now.”

The IV bag got torn at the seam and its contents, looking sort of like watered-down milk, spilled to the floor, filling the air with a pungent, chemical odor. If one went just by their sense of smell, it was nasty, whatever it was.

“The control panel is unlocked,” Jarvis announced. “You should be able to release the restraints now, sir.”

“Thanks, buddy,” Tony said and whipped around. The screen lit up and Tony flipped through the menus until he found the release command, right next to a couple other cheerful options that raised the hair on his neck, like the shock level settings and a temperature slider with a scale starting well below zero Fahrenheit. The shackles unlocked, one after another, with sharp, metallic clicks. Tony pulled them free from their sockets and tossed them to the floor, starting with the one he inadvertently tightened earlier.

Loki frowned, seemingly surprised with this new development, but did not make an attempt to move for a long moment. Then he tipped his head slightly to lock an intensive stare on Tony and dragged his left hand up to his chest. With Loki’s deteriorated muscles straining against the weight on his arm, it took a lot more effort than it should. He positioned his hand perpendicularly to his body, palm opened, then curled his right hand into a fist and pulled it up. It brushed against his palm and hit his chest; the movement unsteady but still desperately decisive. The gesture culminated with the index finger pointed at his throat then fluidly shifted to one hand tracing a circle over the chest, palm inwards. Loki let out a tired breath and slumped, his head and arms falling back onto the table with metallic clanks as the shackles and the back side of the muzzle hit the surface. His limbs were shaking, and his chest was heaving, the small bout of activity expending the last of his meager reserves. The piercing gaze was still firmly fixed on Tony though.

“Jarvis?” Tony prompted. He recognized the obvious attempt at communication, but he couldn’t decode what it was that Loki was trying to tell him. “Can we translate that?”

“Yes, it appears to be the ASL standard.” There was a five-second-long pause, as the AI queried the internal database and cached requested data for easier access, his limited, offline processing power divided between suit operation, hacking the security system and the task at hand. Tony tapped his fingers on his thigh impatiently. “I believe Mr. Odinson just asked you to kill him, sir,” Jarvis provided finally, his voice as neutral as ever, “very politely.”

Tony felt sick again.

“Hey, Hunger Games, no one is killing anyone today, okay?” he said and pumped all confidence he could muster into the sentence. “Unless we run into one of the sick fucks who manage this place on our way out. Then, I can’t make any promises.”

Loki blinked at him, a deep wrinkle forming between his eyebrows again.

“Our common friend would not be pleased if I didn’t get you out of here in one piece,” Tony added and offered Loki a wan smile. He intended to make it more warm and reassuring but it somehow came out that way. “I would owe you one if you could spare me the awkward conversation that will certainly happen if I’m back empty-handed.”

That seemed to have some sort of an effect although Loki’s expression indicated that he didn’t really compute much of what Tony just said. The god took in a long, jagged breath and pushed himself off the table with his elbows. He stayed like this for a couple of seconds, his nostrils flaring, then attempted to sit up, only to fall flat onto his back again, the weakened limbs unable to hold his weight. He squeezed his eyes shut and his hands curled into fists, breath coming in quick, wavery bursts. 

“One more thing,” Tony said, allowing Loki another moment to gather his strength. He circled the table again and stood at its foot. The plate concealing the laser ray in his gauntlet retracted and he turned it on and aimed at the chain connecting Loki’s ankles. The beam activated with a prominent electrical buzz and left a deep scorch mark on the metal tabletop – and, when he peeked under – in the machinery below and even some on the floor – but slid over the links without doing any damage. Tony frowned. The laser was calibrated to cut even through an inch-thick iridium plate, so the element that gave the chain the silvery sheen had to be even denser than that. He turned up the power by twelve hundred watts, the highest the device could take without overheating, and gave it another go, with a very similar result.

“Run the spectral analysis,” he said and pulled the visor back on to look at the detailed readings.

“Preliminary sensor data suggest the alloy has a density of at least thirty-two grams per cubic centimeter, tensile strength of at least three gigapascals and major energy retaining properties.”

“A vibranium alloy? Really?!” _To make some fucking fetters? Who the hell is funding this facility and how much are they afraid of losing Loki if they are willing to invest millions of dollars in ultra-rare materials that are not supposed to exist anymore, just to slow him down?_ Oh well, Tony is going to fuck those plans right up tonight, big time, stealing not only their favorite guinea pig, but also their state-of-the-art bondage gear.

“It looks like it, sir, although further analysis is required to confirm.”

“We have no time for further analysis,” he pointed out and retracted the face shield again.

“The arc reactor blast at over eighty percent power could have enough strength to damage it,” Jarvis suggested.

The suggestion was as accurate as it was unhelpful. Firing the main reactor beam directly at the chain was likely to destroy it, albeit along with everything within the very confined space they were currently occupying. “Thanks, but no thanks. I like my internal organs still within my body.”

Loki eyed him warily yet again and Tony rolled his eyes. He pulled a spare communicator out and slid it across the table, so it landed next to Loki’s right hand. “Put it into your ear.” Loki picked the gadget up and turned it in his fingers in front of his face, studying it with distrust. “It’s a comm-link, not a wiggly brain worm. Now put it in.”

Loki did and his eyes went wide right away as Jarvis introduced himself.

“Meet Jarvis. You two have already met. You know, when you were ruining my penthouse and throwing me out of my window?” Tony said with a smirk. He could swear there was a nervous twitch that crossed Loki’s features at the mention. No matter, it was best to get that out of the way as soon as possible. “Thanks for that, by the way. Now, where were we at? Oh right, getting the hell out of here.”

With what looked like the last-ditch effort, Loki managed to pull himself into an awkward sitting position, propped up with his shaky arms. The blindfold slid off his forehead and back over his eyes. He took it all the way off and tossed it to the floor with a pointed disgust, the wide motion almost bringing him back down before he caught himself at the last possible moment. Then he looked at the smoking grooves in the metal table and the undamaged chain with a confused frown.

“Yeah, there’s nothing else I can do outside of my lab, at least not without doing us both more harm than good. And I would rather not waste precious minutes on trying to pick it apart right now. Will you be able to walk with those on?” The chain was rather short and would make running impossible, but Loki looked like he was barely able to stay upright as-is, running was most likely out of the picture anyway. He regarded the shackles for a moment longer then nodded, slightly. It wasn’t too convincing but that was probably all Tony was going to get, so he took it. “Right. I’m ready to go anytime you are.”

Loki dragged his legs over the side of the table then slowly slid off the edge until his feet touched the floor. The chain jingled as he moved, and his toes curled on the cold concrete. He stayed like that, leaning on the pedestal, panting, his hands gripping the edge tightly, turning his knuckles white. His eyes darted towards the door then back to his feet.

Tony protracted the gauntlet on his right hand on instinct alone and clenched it into a fist, ready to send it flying towards Loki’s face the moment he decides to dash.

He did not. He did, however, try pushing off the table and standing up, only for his legs to give way immediately. Tony was not at all prepared and too far away to catch him so he could only watch as Loki crumbled to the floor in an ungainly heap, his knees and palms connecting with the hard surface with a sickening scrunch. The Asgardian stayed down on all fours, breathing heavily, his head down, fingers splayed flat on the floor, quivers running through his frame. He strained, his spine arched, and he tried to regain a more vertical position, only to collapse again. A desperate growl escaped his throat. He cowered, as if struck, and made no further attempts to get up.

Tony stepped around the table, clasped his hands on Loki’s sides and unceremoniously collected him off the floor, the emaciated physique almost weightless in Tony’s machine-aided arms. Loki shot him a baleful stare of token protest but did not struggle when Tony set him down, back on the table, and gripped his shoulder when he swayed. Loki’s head drooped, hair falling over his face, his arms dangling uselessly at his sides. He leaned forward and Tony was sure he would just fall flat on his mug again without the support.

Tony stood there, flexing his fingers and biting his lip, unsure what to do.

He could call Romanoff down, but reactivating external communication would trigger the wave sensors, making the staff aware of the trespass and, worst case scenario, of the location of the interloper; if they did not already suspect something fishy was going on, that is, he made quite a mess in the generators’ room. And shutting the security down would take too long. Each of the sensors was running on standalone sub-system just like the detention block and accessing each and every one would take time, especially in a way that would leave no hint as for who did it. Not to mention that – even if the signal went through undetected in a stroke of luck – it would take Natasha at least another twenty minutes to reach the lowest level of the base and they might not have as much time before someone finds them, even by randomly wandering in to check on the prisoner. Or to prod a hot iron poker into his ribs, or whatever it was that caused the burns on Loki’s stomach.

If Tony knew it would look like this, he would not object so vehemently to Romanoff coming along. She warned him Loki might be in a rough condition, but even in his most daring thoughts Tony did not expect to find the super-strong, mouthy Asgardian like… this. The last time Tony checked, Loki was fucking bulletproof and it took the Hulk redecorating Tony’s polymer-reinforced composite floor with his face just to stop the crazy god from laughing at them for fifteen minutes…

But here he was, and Tony was the only one here and he was quickly running out of options, with his entire legacy and the livelihood of everyone he cared about on the line. He really did not think this through, did he? He focused on technicalities and never spared a thought for an actual way of moving Loki out, more concerned with Romanoff’s assurances on how the guy would cooperate when presented with an option. Tony assumed he would just lead him out if that’s the case. Loki was cooperating all right, but it didn’t amount to much right now.

Tony could not hope to carry him all the way through the facility, it would mean leaving them both vulnerable to an attack and the corridors were way too narrow and too twisted to just blindly fly through and hope for the best, especially with the semi-conscious tangle of limbs the god was slowly but surely dissolving into in tow. Not to mention that it would destroy the entire secrecy idea; keeping his presence here unknown was still a priority, or else he had nothing to return to.

Still, he couldn’t continue standing here, hoping Loki would just randomly decide he is not dying anymore, and he is good to go. No, that was the surest way to get caught. And the best Tony could hope for upon capture was a quick death, if the alternative was whatever the fuck they’ve been doing to Loki for the last year-then-some (although, Tony suspected, he wasn’t nearly as interesting of a specimen for the purpose). And the only ally he had around was the man who tried to kill him not that long ago, currently half-dead himself and unable to fight or even to sit up on his own…

Jarvis would warn him if he either lost connection to the monitoring system or found someone coming close, but in the offline mode he could rely only on the central unit of the suit, and that was already quite loaded so something had to give, and Tony couldn’t count on Jarvis’ processing power to do all the thinking for him.

No, he needed Loki back on his feet, there was no other way.

Loki’s huffed out a sigh, tensed and made an effort to straighten up, just for long enough to get a series of quick, shaky signs in – he had to grab his left forearm with his right hand to even raise it above the waist level – only to double down soon after. Tony caught him this time.

“Do it and go, before they come,” Jarvis supplied in a way of translation and the decision cemented in Tony’s mind, just like that. He was going to drag Loki out of this hellhole, by his hair if he had to, because there’s no way Tony Stark is doing what the insane god tells him.

He would figure out the rest later.

“Yeah, well, that’s not happening,” Tony said. “Jarvis, initiate the ‘damsel in distress’ protocol.”

Loki startled and tried to jerk away when the pieces of the Iron Man suit peeled away from Tony and started wrapping themselves around him. First the chest piece, then the line of armor along the spine and around the abdomen and forearms. By the time the neck guard unfurled and covered his throat the first shock wore off and his eyes went wide with terror, his body straining fruitlessly against the confinement; the impression of his predicament probably way too alive in his mind still for him to react rationally to being immobilized again.

“Sir, I’m going to release a partial control of the suit to you in a moment, once the assembly of the core pieces is completed,” came Jarvis’ even voice, aimed at Loki, but relayed to Tony’s ear as well. That got Loki to calm down somewhat and to stop hyperventilating. “An upright position is required to finish the process. I’m turning the controls over to you, sir.”

The actuators hissed and whirred to life as they unlocked and Loki wiggled his fingers tentatively, looking down at his metal-covered hand in disbelief. Then he tried moving his arm up, unaware of the effect the strained motion would have on the sensors, and almost ended up punching himself in the face. He would have if Jarvis did not block his arm at the last possible moment.

“It takes a while to get used to, sir.”

Loki glanced up at Tony, then slowly lowered himself from the table again, one foot after the other. He stood up and took one small, unconfident step. Unlike Tony, he had no subdermal receptors and intercranial implants precisely calibrated for the armor’s operation and he needed to rely solely on mechanical controls and Jarvis’ assistance, not to mention it was most likely his first time using such tech. All in all, it was still a far better trial run than Tony expected.

Loki just blinked as the armor finished assembly, then his yelp of surprise got cut short as the visor closed.

Jarvis went on to explain the basic functions and the HUD elements briefly and Tony used the time to regard the man currently wearing his armor. It was quite an unusual sight. The design was finetuned to Tony of course, but it was the pinnacle of technology too, which meant it was elegant and scalable and would work on most body types, to an extent at least. Even then, Loki’s figure was pushing it as far as it would go, too tall and too thin for all the plates to fit quite right where they belonged, further emphasizing the slimmer design of the mark forty-one. Then there was the new paintjob Tony almost forgot about. And the silvery vibranium chain, sticking out from between the plates, adding a dark and twisted touch to the familiar shape of the armor before Tony’s eyes.

“A fair warning,” Tony said, pulling his glasses from his pocket and turning on the interface overlay. “The suit is running on backup power, most of the offensive systems are disabled and Jarvis is authorized to lock you down the moment you even _consider_ doing anything untoward. To me, or to anyone who is not actively trying to kill us. It covers running away too. Are we clear?”

Loki put up a fist and moved it up and down twice.

“That’s a ‘yes’, sir,” Jarvis translated.

“Great. Now let’s go.”


	45. Push through

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's a long way up if you're at the bottom.

The world was sudden and piercing and bright and intense, all harsh angles and too vivid colors. And pain. The pain in his muscles and joints, weakened by disuse and endless sessions of torture. In his eyes, unaccustomed to seeing anything but darkness for so long. In his mouth and throat, rubbed raw by the unyielding metal. In his wrists, ankles and neck, where the manacles bit into his flesh, leaving bloody welts behind. In his stomach that invariably clenched in hunger and still bore marks from the last round of abuse. In his veins that burned from poison administered directly into his bloodstream. In his chest, where a few cracked ribs did not heal properly and where his heart was beating at twice its usual rate and his lungs were fighting for oxygen against the solid, uncompromising pressure of Stark’s armor. 

It took Loki a moment to comprehend that the words of the voice in his ear are targeted at him. It took even longer for his bendy, feeble thoughts to wrap around the meaning. He wasn’t used to being addressed so politely and with anything other than the stream of insults and threats his captors were dishing out just as eagerly as their punishments, even if they were not nearly as hurtful.

“I’m turning the controls over to you, sir,” the voice sang in his head and the armor came to life, its low purr sending vibrations through Loki’s bones, drowning the rush of blood in his ears. The panels readjusted and the pressure lessened. He took a precarious breath and then another and the sheer relief of being able to _breathe_ again toned down the alarm in his rattly, sluggish brain.

He blinked, trying to ward off the blurriness creeping its way into the corners of his vision.

The plates of Stark’s suit were still warm from their owner’s body heat, the sensation unfamiliar but not entirely unwelcome. He reveled in it for a brief moment, letting his aching flesh suck in the whisps of warmth before they were gone.

He looked down at his hand, and watched, mesmerized, as the gauntlet responded to his fingers effortlessly.

The rusty gears in his head shook, grinded together and started rolling and the overdue realization exploded in his brain like a supernova, dulling his senses. The mortal did not come to levy his own version of justice on him. He did not come to aid his oppressors, to add another drop to the ocean of torment. Not even to end his miserable existence in an act of mercy.

Stark was here to steal him away.

The reason was a mystery Loki’s befuddled brain refused to crack for now.

A new door flung open where there was just a hollow blankness before and a long-forgotten flame burst to life in Loki’s chest and stung in his eyes and he reeled, overwhelmed with its sudden intensity. He stole a hiss through the slits of the gag and his tendons protested the activity as he swayed, but the machine held him upright, supporting his weight where his own non-existent strength could not and steadying his quivering limbs. Encouraged, Loki moved his hand up. Despite the bone-deep weakness that rendered it almost unusable just seconds ago, it obeyed him smoothly. Untethered, for the first time in what felt like forever.

Maybe even too smoothly. The machinery came to a jarring stop just a thumb away from his face, locking his body in its rigid grip.

The dull blade of disappointment twisted in his guts. _No, please, don’t take it away, not yet_ , he begged wordlessly, the inability to express it in words burning more keenly now after he was bestowed with the privilege so recently.

The voice chittered in his ear once more, the lock released, and Loki breathed again.

He looked up at the mortal, expecting some sort of order or signal, but the human only eyed him with impatient anticipation. Stark looked not nearly as impressive without the armor and older than Loki remembered, the sight numbly reminding him of the existence of the world outside of the prison that was his entire reality for... Loki wasn’t sure. Months? Years?

It did not matter anyway. He was done with counting.

A thought that he should ask for permission crossed his mind, but he abandoned it before it fully formed. There was no point in delaying further and risking the human to withdraw his assistance already. If Stark did not want him to move, he would not allow it. There was no doubt in Loki’s mind the mortal still retained full control over the situation, being able to command the suit via proxy, even now. He decided to leave worrying about that for some other time.

He slid off the table again, cautiously, wary of the volatile sensors. The shackles clanked, reminding him of their presence. Like he could forget. His jailers were explicit about it. They were a part of him, now. Permanent burden he has to carry, like the metal that covers his lips.

He pushed the thought away. It wasn’t important.

Standing up was a lot less complicated with the aid. His head swam and his muscles spasmed, but the brilliant mortal machine kept him steady, able somehow to differentiate between purposeful movement and the effects of Loki’s ill control over his own body. The plates shifted to embrace his torso; the fit reassuringly tight without applying too much pressure to the injuries at the same time. The line of pistons nudged his spine to straighten and the rest of the armor unfolded around his tights and bottom.

The helmet closed around his head, without a warning, plunging him back into darkness. Yet again, Loki was too slow to stop the exclamation that jutted forth from his larynx, a whiny, pathetic sound. He screwed his eyes shut and waited out the whetted spike of agony as the spell punished him for his lapse. The all too familiar metallic taste of fresh blood filled his mouth. He swallowed, expecting another bout of pain, but it did not come. There was no manacle around his neck anymore and the gorget altered to accommodate the motion without crushing his windpipe against the intrusion in his throat.

There was light on his eyelids, and he pried them open, then gasped at the sight. The entire faceplate was a display, and it showed his surroundings in an immaculate detail. There were rows and rows of data rapidly changing in the corner of his vision, but he couldn’t identify their meanings at first glance, so he ignored it for now. He turned his head and the visual representation followed without a hitch, as naturally as his own eyes would. It was an exquisite use of the primitive technology, pushing it as far as it would go.

The voice… Jarvis, it called itself, tuned in again. “Welcome to the dashboard of the Iron Man suit mark forty-one, sir. I understand your current predicament prevents you from vocalizing, but I need a quick confirmation that you understand my words.”

Loki wasn’t sure how to respond, so he just nodded, slightly, hoping for the machine to pick it up somehow.

”Very well, sir. If you bear with me for a moment, I will explain the basic functionalities, as briefly as I can. The suit receives motor input from the contact points and reacts to your body movements, so normal operation doesn’t require any special input on your side. It currently relies on the secondary power source, located under your right clavicle.” The display flashed an overlay with a schematic drawing of the armor shortly, a highlight at the upper right side of the breastplate blinking. “It will be able to sustain normal operation for two hours or flight for ten minutes, although the latter functionality is currently locked as it’s inadvisable to use it without prior preparations. The charge indicator is on the right. Below that is the status of the life support systems, should you need those. I’ll switch to a visual representation for easier access.” The indiscernible data blinked away, replaced with a lot more readable icons and Loki squashed the absurd objection to being treated like a child before it bubbled to the surface. “I can track your eye movements; you can focus your vision on the controls to access them.”

Loki nodded again.

“One more thing. I registered that your body temperature is significantly lower than the normal value for humans.”

Loki felt his throat tighten.

“Do you wish me to turn on the heating, sir?”

Loki blinked, flabbergasted. It served no other purpose than his comfort and Loki wondered what weird glitch in programming caused the artificial intelligence to concern itself with something so insignificant in the middle of a daring heist. But, when a moment later a prompt popped up, presenting him with the option again, he vehemently focused his stare nonetheless.

An overwhelming wave of warmth flooded over him, flushing his cheeks and chasing away the chill that embedded its teeth in his bones ages ago. There was the stinging in his eyes again and he blinked the tears away. Those could wait.

\---

Stark had to shoulder-charge the door to open it, which made Loki aware of in how much inconvenience the mortal was putting himself through for his sake. There was distrust and open suspicion in his gaze, but he still gave up his best weapon and put himself at risk to get Loki out. His brain scrambled for possible answers to the burning “why?” question, but, once again, came up empty.

The ominous screech of the door swinging on its rusted hinges he grew to be acquainted with so personally over the countless times he’d heard it sent a shudder up his backbone and clenched an iron fist of dread around his heart.

Stark peeked both sides before stepping out of the cell. Loki followed.

He did not look back; he closed his eyes and did not open them until the door slammed shut behind him. He did not allow himself to hope it was the last time yet.

The mortal stopped after a few steps along the dimly lit corridor and looked both ways, his eyes lingering on the line of identical doors as the one leading to Loki’s cell. He whispered something, the words not loud enough for Loki to discern, then he pressed his fingers to his ear, listened for a moment, inclined his head and let out a sigh.

Stark was picking his battles, but he was not happy about it. Loki might have a comment or two about that if the sense of hypocrisy didn’t silence it as effectively as the gag would. Stark turned to him. “You’re good to go, E-tee?”

Loki furrowed his brows, then realized Stark could not see his face. _[Yes.]_

“It’s an acronym for ‘extraterrestrial’,” Jarvis explained in his ear, “Also, the main character from a motion picture about an alien who wants to go home.”

“You dirty turncoat, you were not supposed to tell him that,” Stark chastised quietly, but there was no real vexation in his tone. “You have to keep‘em guessing. By the way, there’s a command to open the visor in the lower left corner, if you feel like it. Jarvis the Betrayer will shut it for you if a need arises.”

Loki did not feel like it.

“All right then, keep your secrets,” the mortal uttered with a weird smile Loki could not assign to any specific expression. “And get moving. The place is giving me the creeps.”

To that, Loki could relate.

The chain limited his stride to short, awkward steps – which he could endure, the human was moving slowly, cautious and on high alert, so it was not hard to keep up with him – and dragged on the floor, raising ruckus, which was a lot more problematic. With wrist shackles he could always keep the chain taunt to prevent it from jingling but there was nothing he could do about the irons on his legs, other than just stop moving. He did not want to stop moving.

Stark regarded the fetters with one disgusted glance but did not say a thing. It was possible he had a plan of escape that would not be put at risk by the incessant noise. And, while Loki was not used to moving with them on yet, he was sure he would, eventually. It was not like he had a choice. 

The cellblock culminated with two consecutive gates, forming a sluice. The first door needed to close before the second one could open, Jarvis informed, confirming Loki’s conviction that there was something off about the assistant’s programming. Stark already knew that and wouldn’t need a reminder, he came in the same way as there was only this one route, in or out. And it served no purpose whatsoever to inform Loki, just like there was no point in wasting energy on heat for Loki’s enjoinment or in providing context to Stark’s name-calling. The mortal did not comment this time though.

Even armed with the knowledge, Loki’s mind rang the alarm bell when the first gate closed behind, trapping them inside the small, dark airlock. His breath quickened and his heart fluttered in his chest. He twisted his arms around and tapped his fingers against his tight, focusing on the newfound freedom of movement instead of his surroundings, even if he knew it was fleeting at best. He still let out a breath of relief when a green light flashed above their heads and the door slid open.

The corridor on the other side was as non-descript and insipid as underground corridors go, on Midgard or on any other planet Loki visited: gray tile and dull green walls, lines of pipes and cables running under the ceiling. If someone wandered in here by mistake, they would have no idea of the horrors waiting just a couple steps ahead.

“So far, so good,” the mortal said and skittled ahead, his eyes lingering on the display more often than on his immediate circumstances.

Loki looked back at the gate before he could convince himself otherwise. The entrance was not even marked. Just an ordinary door one slides their eyes over without really noticing.

The urge to laugh was almost too strong to ignore, but Loki did not want to hear how hysterical it would sound. “Very” was his best guess. He also did not feel ready for another round of discipline, the pain still fresh from the last two he has earned, consecutively. Maybe later he would, but for now he needed all the strength he could summon and wasting resources on a lost battle with the spell was unwise. The effects felt more austere now than they used to, but Loki couldn’t tell if it’s because of his weakened state or if they truly have increased in intensity over time or with each time he triggered the spell. Or was made to. Perhaps it was both. 

The hallway turned and then split into two directions. Stark steered to the left without a hint of hesitation. There were doors lining the walls on either side, but the mortal ignored them all and headed for the one at the far end of the corridor. There was some sort of keypad next to it and it flashed green and beeped as soon as they approached, the lock clicking open. Stark swung the door, revealing a staircase behind it. 

Walking up the stairs was trickier, but doable and Loki wasn’t going to complain as long as he could walk at all. That alone was a refreshing sensation that could be taken away any minute. He would be skipping stairs if the chain allowed it, knowing that every single step takes him closer to… He did not fool himself with thinking “freedom”. It wouldn’t be that, there was no doubt about it. Stark had his plans for him, that much was obvious, because why else would he be here? No one sane goes through this much trouble to retrieve a former, utterly defeated enemy from a prison just to let them go free.

Perhaps the mortal just had a different idea about how the retribution for Loki’s deeds should look like. Stark had his own damages to settle, Loki did trash his home and threw him out of his window after all. On top of that, the journey through the portal Loki orchestrated to open almost cost the human his life. Likely there was something – or someone – he lost to the swarm Loki unleashed on the city as well. That was quite a list and it was not even complete. And his life and his misery were the only currency Loki had left to pay him back with once he demands his dues compensated.

On the other hand, Stark didn’t strike him as an overly cruel individual. He had all the reasons to hate Loki and enjoy the sight of his abasement, yet the appalled reaction to the way he was treated seemed genuine. According to Natasha’s words, he was a man of knowledge first and foremost. Maybe it was Loki’s secrets and not his suffering he was after? Loki could work with that, even though the two were not mutually exclusive. If the choice was between his current masters and the mortal, Loki would take his chances with Stark and live to worry tomorrow about what the rest of his existence may bring. And, if he plays it right, it may not be just darkness and pain. That would leave him with options…

He pulled the reins of his rampaging imagination short and schooled himself for allowing his thoughts to run free like that. He was still not close to being out of this place and the success was far from certain. Especially since the human was growing tired already, panting and sweating, and they cleared only a couple of floors so far. And Loki could not do anything more than watch with growing terror. How long would it take before Stark realizes that his stolen asset is not worth the fatigue?

There was nothing Loki could do when Stark decides he wants his armor back. His body was no longer a serviceable tool. It got broken – perhaps beyond repair – and now it was nothing but a deathtrap. He estimated he could take at most two steps on his own before collapsing to the ground. Then all he’d be able to do was to wait for his jailers to find him and drag him back to his cell. Then make him painfully aware how discontent they are with the escape attempt.

Loki shivered.

Maybe he could convince the human to spare him the leniency of a swift demise once he takes his aid away, after all. A quick energy blast to the head was not a bad way to go and it would be all it took in his current state. Or, if the mortal refuses, he could be persuaded to allow Loki to do it himself, at least. It would not matter much which one it would be. Each alternative meant dying a death of a coward, on his knees, begging for mercy one last time.

If he were stronger, if he were more like Thor – the stupid, audacious, golden Thor – maybe he would find it in himself to endure more, to spit in the faces of his tormentors and not crawl at their feet, to laugh at them as they pull him apart, piece by piece.

He was not. Not now, not ever.

An indolent thought found its way into his mind before he could stop it. _I wish I’d get to see the sky just one last time._ He immediately pushed the notion away, but it was too late. He could almost feel it. The taste of fresh air, the warmth of sun – any sun – on his skin, the gentle caress of wind…

He squeezed his eyes shut and forced himself to focus on the coppery taste in his mouth, on the sharp ache in his left hand where the bones were still mending after the last time they got broken, on the tug of the cursed chain on his ankles. _This is all there is, a miserable existence fit for a pitiful creature you’ve become._ The rest was just a foolish fancy. Even if the escape miraculously succeeded, there was only another dark cell waiting for him on the other side. There always was, in the end.

Why even wait for the inevitable? He could do it right now. The suit’s weapons were disabled, but the propulsors on the palms still showed up as online. All he needed to do was open the visor, aim his hand at his face and press the release on the pad of his thumb. If he was fast enough, he might get it done before Odin’s spell incapacitated him. It wasn’t breaching the rules Stark set out, so the assistant would have no reasons to stop him. Getting one’s face blasted off was a suitable end for…

 _You are not a monster_ , said Natasha in his mind, with one of those small smiles of hers that were both sad and reassuring at the same time, the memory so vivid it knocked the air out of his lungs. And Loki realized that – while he was prepared to die to escape more torture – he really, really wanted to live.

He owed her as much. 

\---

The stairs ran out and the sign above the door on the last landing announced they found themselves on the level minus ten, confirming Loki’s suspicion that the outside was still a long way off.

“The staircases don’t run all the way through the facility, besides the main evac one, but that’s too heavily guarded,” Stark explained in a hushed voice as they waited for Jarvis to open the door. “Also, completely not up to code, but I guess I shouldn’t expect those Nazi fucks to have a higher regard for building regulations than they do for the Geneva Conventions.” Stark sighted, like it was something to be sad or disappointed about, although most of the last sentence could be in a different language just as well for how much Loki understood of it. “We have to go through the labs to get to the western stairwell or for the elevator bank in the hub.

Loki nodded. He wasn’t sure whether the mortal wanted to clue him in for strategical reasons or just couldn’t bear not hearing the sound of his own voice for too long, but he appreciated having at least the rough outline of the plan presented to him. If Stark wanted to pretend Loki was an ally and not a prisoner for the moment, it was only to Loki’s benefit. He knew he had to obey anyway, he was entirely dependent on Stark’s whims, but an illusion of choice was still marginally better than no choice at all.

“And let me tell you, I’m all in for the elevators,” the mortal added, and stretched his leg. “I’m totally ready to call it a day when it comes to stairs and there’s still like a million more to go.”

The door beeped open and Stark bestowed Loki’s ankles with a pitying glare. “There may be people on this level. Stay here, I’ll scout ahead, ‘kay?”

Loki was not sure what exactly it was supposed to accomplish – from what he’d gathered the mortal had the access to the system of cameras and should be able to tell if someone was around – but submitted to the command all the same. Stark was in charge and that was his call to make.

He leaned on the wall and watched the door close. He did not need the support but clinging to it offered at least an illusion of coverture.

He was dead tired, his limbs were trembling in the confines of the armor and there was not a single part of him that didn’t hold one ache or another, but his head was clearer already than it was in a long time. He could feel his body slowly working out the drug, burning the remnants of the poison away. He might not have his magic or his strength or his voice anymore, but his metabolism was still faster than that a mortal. And it would take a lot more than the toxins coursing in his system to keep him under for long.

It was truly a delightful feeling.

He huddled closer to the wall and closed his eyes, just to give them a momentary respite from the brightness of the head-on display; it was overblowing the highlights and turning the blacks into greenish grays. Undoubtedly a convenient feature for humans, but Loki could see well enough without that and the light was searing his retinas. 

“Sir?” came Jarvis’ voice and he gritted his teeth against the metal involuntarily. “You should move. I have to rearm the security in this area before you and mister Stark could move on to the next zone.”

Loki shook his head to rouse his brain back to alertness and peeled himself away from the wall. The clanking suddenly sounded even more jarring now that he found himself alone in the empty stairway. He should do something about that. Wrapping the chain would at least muffle the noise, but he had no option of doing it now. Not only he couldn’t open the suit without alerting Stark, he also could not afford a delay in following a direct order to move. He should have thought about it earlier, but he was too preoccupied with other matters. Like moving and breathing.

He sighed and opened the door a notch to peek outside.

There were three hallways intersecting by the stairwell entrance. He scrutinized each one but could not see Stark anywhere, the man must’ve turned the corner already. Loki’s thoughts curled around a juicy curse.

“Down the corridor to your right,” Jarvis provided, and Loki stepped outside.

This level looked vastly different than the lower one. The walls, the floor and the ceiling shared a similar, off-white tone that burned his eyes before the contrast of the display adjusted. The halls were wider and brighter, although only some lights in the paneled ceiling were on. There were pieces of lab equipment scattered along the walls, some chairs and even plants here and there too, although Loki suspected they had to be artificial so deep underground.

Loki reached the next intersection and froze. There was a room with a window facing the corridor a couple of steps ahead and a light just flickered to life on the other side of the glass. He dropped into a crouch. “My sensors don’t detect anyone in that room,” said Jarvis.

“Your sensors are being messed with, buddy. There’s a scrambler running, somewhere down the hall. Might be a coincidence, but something tells me not to count on that.” Stark’s voice was a screechy whisper overlayed with static and only then Loki fully understood how exactly the communication link in his ear worked. “Loki, come here!” The words were clipped and left him momentarily disoriented. Then there was a slight movement and a flash of light down the corridor as Stark’s hand emerged from a niche two dozen steps ahead. It had a gauntlet that ended a bit above the wrist on, with a shining light on the palm. A back-up weapon, Loki supposed.

By the Norns, he would give up a lot to have his daggers.

On the other hand, what did he have left to sacrifice that wasn’t already taken from him? Other than his life, which wasn’t worth much right now.

He took one step, staying low.

A man entered the lit room via a door on its other end. A lab worker, judging from the white coveralls, preoccupied with a device in his hand. 

Loki angled closer to the ground then gripped the chain and held it up, trading some of the already diminished range of movement for quieter operation. He took another careful step and noticed a faint reflection on the wall move with him. The visor light, he realized with a start.

Lower left, Stark has said. He searched for the icon and quickly found something that might look like a helmet if one exaggerated. He stared at it with an intent. The headpiece retreated with an electrical whoosh and the unfiltered air filled his lungs. There was a familiar stench in it, the chemical they used to clean their equipment – or sometimes Loki himself – down in the cell. It was not nearly as irrepressible but still strong enough to send his head banking and stagger his breath.

He gritted his teeth and the stab of pain in his gums took his mind off the smell.

He skulked towards the wall with the window in it. The man on the other side tapped his device and put it away, then stepped closer to the glass, peering outside. Loki froze, hoping that the bright light reflecting off the pane would prevent him to see the darker corridor outside.

A second man went through the door, the first one turned to greet him, and Loki used the opportunity to cross the rest of the hallway. He pressed his back to the partition, just below the window, and wished he could silence the low burr and mechanical whine of the armor. It was an astonishing piece of technology, but, regrettably, not ideal for sneaking.

Two shadows appeared in the rectangle of light on the wall in front of him and Loki heard the low murmur of muffled voices. He couldn’t recognize the words, but the tone was not alarmed.

He carefully put the chain down. _[I think they don’t know we are here yet,]_ he signed. He was not sure whether Jarvis could read his words from the suit movements alone, but it was worth a try.

“That’s very reassuring,” came a sarcastic reply a moment later. “Can you move?”

He nodded.

“Great. Any time now.”

He took in a long breath, got a hold of the chain again and slowly creeped along the wall, keeping his head low. He stopped once he passed the window, listening. The voices were gone and so were the shadows, but there were no other indications that would suggest the situation has deteriorated.

He reached Stark’s hiding place and dove into the recess in the wall. Stark was hiding behind a stack of cardboard boxes and crates. It was a good spot, the obstacle was obscuring the view, as long as the mortal did not stand up, he shouldn’t be spotted, even if someone walked past. He was crouching down next to a device that Loki assumed was some sort of a water container. One of those he saw before all over Midgard, in all kinds of establishments. Stark moved to make room for Loki and poked it with his elbow. The liquid in the canister sloshed, making Loki painfully aware of the existence of thirst as a concept, the water so tantalizingly close. He closed his eyes and waited for the pangs of yearning to subside. There were more important matters at hand.

“Fuck, I’m not constructed properly for all this clandestine shit,” Stark complained with a pout. “I’m more of the guns blazing, American anthem blaring and bald eagles flying in the background type of guy.”

_[Why did you come then?]_

Stark waited for the translation before answering. “You’d rather stay in that dungeon?” he hissed. “It can be arranged, if you miss it already.”

Stark was being facetious, but Loki’s heart skipped a beat at the suggestion all the same. _[I would rather have you kill me than go back.]_

“Geez, we talked about it, Stitch. Twice. No killing today. Unless, you know, goons. Do I need to get you a therapist or something?”

“Stitch is a character from an animated feature film about a genetically engineered alien who finds a family of choice after being banished to Earth,” Jarvis interjected, only furthering Loki’s confusion. 

“I swear I’ll delete your entire pop culture database if you don’t shut up,” Stark snarled under his breath.

Jarvis replied something, confidently into Stark’s ear, and the mortal’s face turned dark. “Yeah, right,” he said somberly. “Let’s keep going.”

The man glanced at his display briefly and turned to leave. Loki closed a hand around his upper arm, stopping him. Stark winced and glared at the armored fingers squeezing his flesh with plain disfavor, more annoyed than hurt or else Jarvis would surely intervene. Loki slowly unfolded his digits. “What the hell?”

 _[Open the suit,]_ Loki said, to whomever it might concern. He suspected Jarvis wouldn’t do it without Stark’s explicit permission.

Stark was glowering at him now and the stare turned even harder when he heard the transcription. “Uhm, what?”

Loki wasn’t playing this game, so he just waited for the mortal to gather the meaning on his own.

“What for?” Stark whispered after two heartbeats.

 _[Because I need to wrap the chain,]_ Loki explained, _[or I won’t go far without alarming everyone. My shirt would do.]_ It was ruined anyway. And, if their escape came to pass, wherever Stark decided to lock him up later, he could probably spare enough pity to provide him with fresh clothes, particularly after going through all the commotion to get him out first.

“Okay, yeah, good idea,” Stark muttered, but – instead of instructing Jarvis – he tugged on his own sleeve. He was wearing some sort of close-fitting under-armor clothes, probably custom made and very expensive. Of course, a man of his status and with his resources at the disposal would not fret with wasting it, just like Loki wouldn’t before his station was reduced to what it was now, but it was still an unnecessary expense when there was a far more convenient option available.

Unless there was some other stipulation Loki was missing. Was Stark afraid that his enemy-turned-prisoner would attack him without the control of the suit? That was a ridiculous notion, undeniably and for a multitude of reasons. The mortal had no motivation to trust Loki, that much was true, but he must surely know that Loki had no other option but to follow. Did Stark not realize in how much of a disrepair Loki’s body was? The mortal saw the dungeon, he saw what they did, there was no hiding the truth. But that one time, when Loki could use someone underappreciating his capabilities, the annoying human decided to give him too much credit?

Stark pulled off the external layer of his upper body attire, whatever one could call it, revealing the light in his chest shining through the undershirt. Loki’s stomach dropped. He forgot it was there and now the memory of the power source singing its sweet melody in his veins overwhelmed him and made him shiver.

He couldn’t feel it at all, now. Like there was nothing.

And when he tried to reach out for it, instinctively, his senses crashed against the barrier that surrounded his core. The spell flared up, the metal heated up and scorched his throat. Loki squeezed his eyes shut and focused on breathing instead.

Stark nudged him. “Here.” He handed Loki his undershirt and pulled the outer layer back on, the motion awkward in the little space available in their hiding spot.

Loki did a quick job of tearing it apart. He sat down and started swathing the chain with strips of cloth, but the armored fingers were far from a perfect tool for that, stiff, clumsy and slippery. Stark watched him try for a while with growing irritation. He rolled his eyes and muttered, “oh, for fuck’s sake, give me that,” before discourteously swatting Loki’s hand away and getting on the task, a lot more expertly.

“Here,” he said, when he was done, “can we go now, or do you need a diaper change too?”

Loki wished he could bare his teeth in a snarl for that. But he could not, so he just took in a breath and got up.

Only to immediately drop down again.

There was someone in the corridor. Multiple someones. Three people, walking in their direction, a lab worker and two soldiers, in full combat gear. They had their weapons out, but they were pointed at the floor for now.

Stark saw him ducking and did not even try to stand up on his own, staying crouched. Then he heard the muffled steps too and cursed under his breath. “Jarvis? Where’s my warning?”

“I do not understand, sir, the cameras are still showing nothing in the area.”

“Your own loop is being fed back to you, tend to that shit,” Stark snarled. He was nervous. His eyes turned to Loki. “Got a look at them? How many are there?”

_[Three, two with weapons.]_

“Fuck,” Stark cursed again, without a pause. The signs must’ve been readable enough without translation.

They could hear the talking now. “…heard some noises before the power failure and saw someone moving past his window. And Jenkins is reporting that there are issues with the feed from the basement. There might be a connection.”

“We will look into that, go back into your office and lock the door,” came a gruff reply.

One pattern of footfalls changed. The scientist was following the order and turning back. The other two were still heading in their direction.

There was a shot of static and the gruff one spoke again. “Leader, this is Roam Two, we’re investigating potential breach in the lab level twelve. One of the eggheads claims they saw some lights moving or some shit. They also have a problem with the camera feed from the basement.”

There was a pause.

“Copy that. And send someone down there if the bums from IT can’t get it fixed ASAP.”

The steps reached their hiding place and one of the men slowed down.

“I’ll check …” The words got cut short as Loki sprung up and shouldered the stack of crates, sending them flying straight at the soldier. The man staggered, but quickly regained his footing without going down. He started to rise his weapon, but Loki was quicker. Snapping neck gave out a satisfying scrunch and the guard crumbled to the floor.

There was a gunshot. The visor unfolded around his head, the bullet bounced off the metal and the pistons in the greaves compensated for the force of impact, keeping Loki steady.

An amazing machine, truly.

He dodged the second bullet then started circling, slowly, to get into a melee range. He would just lunge at the opponent, but he knew he wouldn’t be able to get a good enough leap, wary of the chain. The guard fired again. Loki sidestepped to avoid getting hit.

“Stop where you…” The words turned into an incoherent scream and then cut to silence when a beam of energy hit the man in the face, sending him flying. He hit a wall and slid down to the floor. Loki picked up the weapon dropped by the first guard. He took a step forward then fired, directly between the man’s eyes, as he was starting to rise.

“Okay, now drop the gun,” Stark said, emerging from the niche, lowering his arm, the light on the palm dulling. He rolled his shoulder and crooked his head, waiting. The weapon clattered to the floor and Loki took a step back. “Half of the base must’ve heard that.”

“There was an emergency broadcast from two offices, but I managed to cut the connection before it went through,” Jarvis interjected. “But I would still advice you to clear the area.”

“You don’t have to tell me twice,” Stark said, grabbed the gun and put it behind his belt. “Nice moves, by the way,” he added, “but I’d appreciate if you refrained from further bloodshed, princess.”

There was no heart behind the command and Loki knew Stark was just as eager to not get caught as he was, even if for a different reason. If he cared about the lives of the guards more than about his own – or, what was more of a surprise, Loki’s – he would have Jarvis lock him in before Loki was allowed to fire the gun. The man was incapacitated and was not, in fact, actively trying to kill them anymore. Loki wondered briefly how far the loophole went.

Stark turned on his heel. “This way,” he said and pointed at the end of the corridor the guards came from. “Keep close. And don’t… Just keep close.”

Then he hit into a strut and Loki found out, the hard way, that it’s impossible to run in ankle shackles and look dignified at the same time. He still did. His dignity wasn’t keeping him alive right now, the annoying mortal was. And Loki wanted it to stay that way, for as long as it could.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Over 1k hits! That's a new record for me. Thank you, guys! I appreciate it, and every single like and comment, even if I don't respond!
> 
> Shutout for the @Spacefloosie (again, how the hell do I tag?) for the chapter to chapter reactions! <3


	46. Breathe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> " _It might be the most idiotic thing I’ve done in my life,_ Tony thought cheerfully."

“Unlock the second door on the left, Jay,” Tony said under his breath. He came to a sliding stop and grabbed the knob, but it wouldn’t open. “Jarvis?”

“I’m trying, sir, but there’s a complication.”

Loki stepped around Tony, grabbed the handle and pushed the door inside, along with the frame.

“That works, I suppose,” Tony said as he dove inside. Loki was getting the hang of the suit operation pretty damn quickly.

It was a lab, because, duh, laboratory level. The lights were off here, but there was another, similar room just behind a glass division that was brightly lit. He fell into a crouch and stayed under the line of the metal islands in the middle of the room.

“There, the doorway at the back,” he whispered when Loki joined him. The Asgardian nodded in agreement.

A woman ran through the other lab and went straight for the door to the hallway, almost hitting her face against it when it did not respond to her pulling on the handle. “Thanks, Jarvis.”

“The least I could do, sir.”

The woman turned around and yelled something towards the backroom. It wasn’t in English, nor Sokovian, more like some Scandinavian language. Swedish or Danish. Norwegian possibly. Multicultural endeavor, the bunch. 

“She is saying to call for backup. I’ll try to block the call if I can trace it.”

“Can we snuff the comms on this level? Hell, cut off the entire base? We’re kind of past the pretenses at this point.”

“They’re running through seven different servers in three different subsystems and the defensive measures have just been launched. I can’t disable all of them at once without giving up my position.”

“Okay, just focus on opening the way.” That was the paramount, the rest they could deal with. “And keep me posted.”

Jarvis stated a confirmation and tuned out. Tony stopped, considering his options. He couldn’t lead them back into the corridor, because – first, they needed to get to the stairwell, going for the elevators would leave them too exposed if someone pinpointed their location, which was a given at this point. Targets on a shooting range, not fun. Second – it would be swarming with guards soon enough.

They had to cross the backroom and get into the service hallway beyond. “We still need to go through there, there’s no other way.”

Loki gave him the “yes” sign and moved forth. The wrapped chain wasn’t entirely silent, but it was a lot better, especially when Loki was moving slowly, like now. It looked a bit less offensive to Tony’s sense of decorum, too. Slightly, but it was still an improvement. Tony should’ve thought about that, but just looking at it made his stomach churn and he subconsciously gave it as little deliberation as humanly possible. And, again, having to keep quiet was some spy level shit he wasn’t at all used to.

But it looked like Loki was a natural. Or just had a lot of practice.

The drugs they had him under had to be wearing off too, because he seemed more and more coordinated and aware of his surroundings. Which meant better chances for their continual survival, but also made Tony a bit jittery. Jarvis’ resources were spread thinly, and one slip could mean Tony’s demise if the god flipped his shit and the AI was not fast enough to stop him. So far it seemed Loki was far more interested in surviving and getting out in one piece than in picking up where they left off in New York though.

Loki moved closer to the glass division, lifted the visor and peeked over the edge of the window and into the backroom. He was up for just a split second and the thumbnail view from the suit’s main camera Tony had on in the corner of HUD showed just a quick blur of motion. 

Loki’s hands moved. “Four lab workers, no soldiers, no visible weapons,” Jarvis provided, before the recognition software finished processing the feed. All right, Loki’s brain was definitely up and running.

Tony enabled the comm link. “Okay. Here’s what we’re going to…”

Loki shot up from where he was crouching next to the partition. His gauntleted fist shattered the glass and he promptly vaulted over the barrier, with an amount of grace pretty unexpected for someone who just minutes ago couldn’t even hold his own head up.

“Sir?” Jarvis prompted.

“No, let him. We have to deal with them anyway,” Tony whispered.

The woman by the door screamed and started yanking on the knob again, but the door wouldn’t budge. Loki grabbed some heavy piece of lab equipment from one of the tables – it might have been a stand or a burner, Tony wasn’t sure – and hurled it her way. It smashed on the wall just an inch off her head. She fell to her knees and tried scuttling away into a corner. Another makeshift projectile crashed on the wall behind her and she froze, her hands over her head, half as protection, half in a gesture of surrender.

Tony pulled out the pistol and released the cocking lever, but kept it aimed at the floor still, staying hidden. Loki would have gotten her with the first throw if he wanted to.

The science lady looked up and her lips parted in shock. Then the eyes went wide. “You…” she rasped. “How did you…” Loki crooked his head, raised his hand – very slowly – and put a finger against the muzzle. Tony couldn’t see his expression from this angle, but whatever it was, it cut her words short and turned them into a fearful whimper.

The back door flung open and two men in lab coats came in running. One was wielding some sort of baton, black, an inch thick and a good foot and a half long. The other held a metal chair in front of him, legs first, like a shield. Or a battering ram.

Loki whipped around to face them. The men slowed down but didn’t stop moving. Loki widened his stance, took one decisive step forward and locked his narrowed eyes on the baton guy. The chair guy started circling him on the left, slowly raising his weapon of choice above his head and his intentions wouldn’t be any clearer even if he were carrying a banner. Loki ignored him, still focused on his colleague. The man noticed, set his shoulders, and squeezed his hand on the hilt of his club. Its end buzzed with electricity. Some kind of a taser then.

Tony came upon a realization that he was supposed to be a more active participant and not just an observer, but he wasn’t exactly sure which side required his assistance more. On one hand, he did not come here to let Loki loose and enable him to murder everyone he lays his eyes upon. On the other, this bunch obviously knew who Loki was, and, in the context, it could mean basically one thing and one thing only. And Tony knew better than to stand between a man and the revenge he is taking upon people who tortured him. Loki was showing restraint, all things considered, and Tony couldn’t really muster much compassion for people who voluntarily worked in a place like this.

Loki took another step, getting within the chair guy’s range. Two things happened at the same time: the chair guy swung his piece of furniture at Loki and the baton guy lunged. Loki’s left arm flew up, knocking the chair away before it connected with his head. The momentum of the parry staggered the attacker and allowed Loki to wrap an armored hand around his throat. All this time he didn’t even deign the guy worthy of a single glance, his gaze still fixed firmly on the taser. Its wielder brought it up, aiming at Loki’s chin, the small opening between where the neck guard ended, and the muzzle began. Loki grabbed his wrist, stopping the baton an inch from his face. The ex-chair guy wriggled in the tight grasp, trying to get away, his hands clawing at the vambrace. Loki brought his arm down, smashing the guy’s head on a metal table. The not-so-much-chair-anymore-man went slack and crumbled to the ground.

Loki’s eyes never lost focus, but the small distraction was still enough for the taser guy to breach the last inch dividing the buzzing end from its target. It connected with Loki’s chin, the baton fizzed and released its charge and the god’s face contorted. Just the sound alone made Tony suspect that the voltage was high enough to bring down a horse.

Loki’s head jerked back, his face frozen in a grimace of pain, but he did not go down or release the grip on man’s hand. After what seemed like an excruciatingly long while he managed to school his expression into something that couldn’t be anything but a derisive sneer. It wasn’t as impressive as Tony remembered with the best part of it hidden behind the muzzle.

Metal-clad fingers curled up tighter, the man yelped in pain and his knees started to buckle. Loki twisted the wrist away from his body. It bent at a very unnatural angle, the bones giving way, and man’s fingers lost the grip on the baton. Loki grabbed the stick before it hit the floor, flipped it in the air, pressed it onto guy’s throat and fired. The man screamed, his spine arched, and he slid down to the ground, unconscious. Or dead, Tony had hard time telling.

Loki stood there, staring at the weapon in his hand. Just as Tony opened his mouth to tell him to hold on to it, his expression changed from mockery to revulsion and he tossed the baton away. It clattered on the tiles and rolled under one of the tables. He turned to look at Tony. There was blood dripping down from his nose.

 _Okay then._ Tony indicated the backroom with his chin, the god nodded curtly and started to move.

“Stop!” came a yell and they both turned. The science lady was holding a small revolver, one of those advertised as you-can-carry-it-in-your-purse golden trinkets. Definitely not a standard issue weapon. Tony didn’t even notice her retrieving it. Or getting up. “There’s no place for monsters like you among the living!” she howled, her voice rough and thick with accent. “I could have killed you a hundred times if they only allowed me! Now I’m going to…”

Tony shot her.

He was aiming for the shoulder but the layer of glass and the unfamiliarity with the pistol – Tony never fired one of those before and it’s been a while since he used a conventional weapon without aim assist – affected the trajectory and the bullet got her straight through the throat. Her eyes rolled backwards, and she slid down the wall, leaving a bloody trail behind. “Oops.”

Loki raised an eyebrow.

“What? She was about to shoot you,” Tony said and came over to the opening in the glass barrier. He knocked out a couple of sharp shards still sticking out of the bottom of the frame with the grip of the pistol, then leapt to the other side. “Besides, why should I settle for the knock-off villain banter if I’m going to have the genuine article at home soon?”

Loki’s expression made it abundantly clear that he was not amused.

Tony grinned and aimed his steps towards the back, grabbing onto the raised pistol with both hands, for better stability.

He crossed the threshold and had to dodge immediately as a tire iron – or something equally heavy and metal – got swung in his direction. It missed his head and hit the doorframe instead, raining pieces of sheetrock and dust into his eyes. Another piece of lab equipment whooshed above and Tony looked up just in time to see it connect with the remaining lab worker’s forehead, knocking him down.

“If a hot plate throw ever becomes an Olympic event, you’re going to be a serious contender,” he said and peeked into the backroom, pistol first, “Anyone else wants to try to stop us?”

A quiet whimper came as an answer from behind a row of shelves.

“Come out, or I’ll just shoot in your general direction and hope for the best.”

“I can’t!” the voice cried out, wavery and desperate.

Tony pushed further into the backroom. In the middle there was a well-lit operating table. Medical equipment was strewn across multiple rolling tables around it and the covers were disturbed, like it was recently in use, but it was empty and the metal manacles on the sides hung open.

Past the line of shelves that was obstructing his view before stood a cage. Three of the walls, made of thick metal bars, were bolted into the floor and ceiling and the frame was pushed against the concrete wall of the room, creating a small pen, maybe five steps across.

There was a man huddled inside. He curled closer to the ground at the first sight of Tony. He had a similar prison uniform to what Loki was wearing on, although his was in a lot more usable condition. Also, something that looked suspiciously like a shock collar. The shirt of the uniform was unbuttoned, and his arms were bound behind his back. Tony swore and lowered the gun.

“Hey,” Tony said, “we are not going to hurt you, do you understand? I’m here just to get a friend out. You can come too if you want.”

The man… no, a kid, for he couldn’t be more than fifteen and small for his age, raised his shaved head and trained big, brown eyes on Tony in silent supplication. Then Loki entered the scene, kid’s gaze shifted, and his eyes immediately went wide with panic. He scrambled onto his feet unsteadily and scurried away, until the back wall stopped him. “Please, don’t kill me,” he pleaded. “I didn’t want to do that to you. They forced me, they... I’m sorry, I’m so sorry!”

“Seriously, is there anyone in the entire facility who you have no reason to hold a grudge against?” Tony asked, turning to the god. “A janitor maybe?”

Loki ignored him and glared at the kid, then touched his forehead twice. Jarvis translated. “He knows that,” Tony relayed. “Just for the sake of transparency, you’re not here willingly, are you?”

The kid shook his head fervently, which, well, wasn’t much of a surprise.

“Do the honors, your highness,” Tony said, and pointed at the bars. They looked like regular steel and with the aid of the suit Loki should deal with them in no time.

Loki stood his ground and his hands moved again. “He asks if you can undo… uhm, the spell?” Tony repeated Jarvis’ transcription, not entirely sure what to make of it. Mmm, sneaking _and_ magic, the night couldn’t get any better, could it?

The kid pushed further into the corner. “I… I don’t know,” he said, apparently understanding what Loki meant. He cowered like he expected a blow, his narrow shoulders straining against the bonds. “Not with the collar. It suppresses my powers,” he admitted quietly, then looked up, his eyes jutting between Loki and Tony. “But I can try if you remove it!”

There was a sound of heavy footsteps, coming from the inner hub. A whole lot of them.

“Yeah, well, let’s worry about that later, shall we? Loki?!”

The god complied then, ripping the gate cleanly off the hinges and tossing it to the side like it was made of cardboard. He stepped inside the cell and grabbed the kid by his shoulder, unceremoniously forcing him to face the wall, then torn one of the cuffs on his wrists apart. They were a standard, flimsy handcuffs, not some heavy-duty manacles like the ones locked on Loki, so they came apart effortlessly, freeing boy’s hands. So, the kid had magic, but physically wasn’t stronger than an average human, Tony noted.

“Thank you,” the kid whispered.

“Yeah, great, now let’s go!” Tony ordered and hit into a run towards the far end of the room. He almost reached the door to the service hallway before he heard crashing in the outside lab, an unmistakable sound of door being kicked in. “Jarvis?”

The keypad by the service corridor entry was still blinking red. Tony stepped aside and Loki charged. Impact tore a hole in the frame where the lock’s latches sat, and the door swung open with such a force it bounced off the wall and closed again. Tony pushed on it and held it open to let Loki and the kid through.

Just as the boy passed, the other door flung ajar and the shelves came crashing down. Then came the shouts, although Tony wasn’t too interested on what the guards had to say. Then they started shooting. Tony ducked and retreated into the hallway.

“This way!” he yelled and ran to the right. “Jay, don’t fail me now, we need the door to close behind us to buy some time,” he breathed. 

They turned a few corners and got to the homestretch just as a light at the far end of the corridor flashed green. They might not be dead in the water yet then.

There were footsteps following closely behind and Tony had to dodge again before they reached the staircase and – when they finally did and the heavy door closed behind them and secured with a reassuring beep – he stopped to catch his breath, pressing his back to the opposite wall. All this running and avoiding being fired at was a lot more stressful without the protection of the armor. Tiring, too.

There were more shots on the other side. Apparently, the guards did not bother with security overrides and went straight for the old, trusted way of blowing the lock. The doors were made of two thick layers of metal and should hold on for a while, so they still had a moment to…

There was a buzz and a laser beam cut though the metal and scorched the wall, a couple of inches from Tony’s hand. Loki grabbed his arm and pulled him out of the way and up the stairs.

“Yep, good idea,” Tony breathed.

Loki let go of him when they reached the next landing but gestured him on when he slowed down. “I get it, you want to get the fuck out of here ASAP. Makes the two of us. Or three,” he said and pointed his chin up the stairway, where the kid has already disappeared. “But I’m not actually a machine, in case you didn’t notice.”

Loki stopped then, a few stairs ahead. _[You want the armor back.]_

“You’re good to go on without it?” Tony asked.

The god hesitated before answering. _[No.]_

“Then why would you even ask?”

Loki’s face was unreadable, but the intensity of his stare nonetheless managed to send a shiver down Tony’s spine. He then turned and continued up the stairs without saying anything more.

They cleared three stories before they heard the screeching of metal giving way and the guards poured into the stairway.

“There are two units about to enter the staircase from above,” Jarvis warned.

“Hey, kid! Come back! They are…” The rest of the sentence got drowned in the sound of an explosive. The support squad had just about as much patience as their colleagues.

They met the kid on level six as he was running back down. “They’re coming!”

“Yes, I know. In here,” Tony shoved the door open.

The level was darker than the corridor, with only a couple of emergency lights on. Most of the division walls were torn down, there were building materials scattered everywhere and the floor was covered with rubble.

They reached the main hub area and Tony stopped to catch a breath. “Jay? How’s the main staircase?”

“My access has been cut in that area. It would be the safest to presume it’s not clear.”

Tony minced a curse.

 _[What now?]_ Loki asked.

“Let me think,” Tony breathed. “There’s basically one route out left, through the hangar, but that’s going to be guarded as…”

“I can help,” the kid interjected.

Both Tony and Loki turned. “How?”

“I can teleport us out of here,” he said and prodded his collar, “if you remove this.”

Tony crooked his head and studied the kid for a moment and, when his assessment turned out inconclusive, he looked up to Loki. After all, he was the closest thing to an expert when it came to magic one could get. “Does it sound like something that could work?”

Loki frowned and his eyes dashed between Tony and the kid. _[Yes,]_ he said and hesitated in the middle of the following gesture.

“C’mon, spill it, we don’t have all day.”

_[I can’t have magic used on me. It either won’t work at all or I will…]_

“You will what?” Tony prompted, quickly running out of patience.

Loki shook his head. _[We can try. If it doesn’t work, you can go with the boy and I’ll try making my way out on my own.]_

Tony stared at him. “You tell me to leave you behind?”

_[You have all the power as long as I’m locked inside the armor. I know I cannot run from you.]_

This was not at all what Tony meant, but it wasn’t the right place or time to have such discussions. “Okay, if you think we should try, we will. Kid?”

“My name’s Billy,” he said, moving closer and crooking his neck so Tony could take a look at the collar.

Tony didn’t reciprocate the introduction, focusing on the examination instead. The thin band was made of plastic and didn’t look very sturdy. “Can you give me a hand here, princess? Literally. There’s a scanner built into the gauntlet. If you could…”

Loki ran his fingers over the collar then stopped on the lock. Tony traced the data on his HUD. There was a power cell, some electrodes on the side touching the skin and a sensor circuit, then a simple mag-lock. It was such a straightforward construction it felt almost offensive.

“Place your index finger here.” Loki did. “Jarvis, give me some spark. Twelve volts should do.”

A small electric arc jumped from Loki’s finger to the collar and Billy jerked away with a surprised yelp. The voltage wasn’t enough to hurt, but it might have stung a bit.

“Take it off,” Tony said and Loki tore the lock off and slipped the collar off kid’s neck.

“Woah, that was quick,” Billy exclaimed.

“Well, you’re looking at a genius,” Tony said with a smile. Telling the kid the collar wasn’t actually blocking anything would be pointless.

“Should I… try to remove the charm from the shackles first?” Billy asked hesitantly, looking at Loki. “Would that help?”

Loki shook his head.

There was a bang and the door flung open. Billy’s hands moved and tendrils of blue energy appeared around his forearms and snaked down to his fingers. He reached for Tony’s hand but Tony shook his head and nudged his chin at Loki. They needed to see if it would work first. Billy turned, but instead of grabbing Loki’s wrist like he tried with Tony, he raised his hand towards god’s face. Loki must’ve understood the reason (skin on skin contact, Tony guessed), because he leaned closer, allowing Billy to touch his temple.

The moment Billy’s fingers brushed against Loki’s skin, god’s knees gave way, his eyes rolled back into his skull and a suppressed cry tore from his throat. Then Loki doubled over and fell to all fours.

The kid stared with horror in his wide eyes.

“Go!” Tony called. The footsteps were coming closer.

“But…” Billy protested and extended his hand to Tony.

“I told you to go!”

“I’m sorry,” the kid mouthed then the tendrils were back and the air shimmered around him. And then, just like that, he was gone.

“Some assistance, Jay!” Tony yelled, and grabbed Loki’s arm.

He hauled the god a few feet away, behind a cover of a stack of cement bags, crashed right next to him and pulled a sheet of tarp down, just as the guards turned the corner. The group stopped by the elevator shaft and exchanged some commands in what Tony assumed was Sokovian. Then their boots shuffled on the grit and they trudged down the hallway to the left.

Tony let out the breath he was holding. “Fuck me, that’s stressful,” he breathed. He turned to Loki. In the faint light Tony’s spare propulsor gave off he looked even paler than before, if that was even possible. His eyes were half closed and there were fresh streaks of blood running down his chin and neck.

“So, that was the other alternative you failed to disclose, huh?”

Loki nodded faintly without looking at Tony.

“Can you move, or do you need another minute?”

Loki took a deep breath and started to scramble to his feet. He fought it valiantly, but the pained wince still made its way to his face.

“Another minute was one of the options, you know.”

Loki collapsed back down and closed his eyes. _[I can’t offer you anything that would make it worth your effort. You came here for nothing. Leave me and save your own life. And, if it’s the revenge you crave, spare me your mercy and carry it out right now.]_

Tony sighed and didn’t reply. It was obvious Loki barely kept it together. Some rest and seeing a friendly face should help, at least a bit. Then they would figure the rest out.

They sat like this for a couple of minutes, in the darkened, dusty room in the middle of enemy territory and Tony didn’t find the silence awkward, for reasons he couldn’t truly name.

“Come on, we should go,” he said in the end and got up. “We still have six floors to go.”

\---

The way to the hangar silo was surprisingly clear, but their luck ran out as soon as they entered. There were guards swarming inside. Tony hoped they might steal some machine here and use it to escape, but the hangar was empty. And then there was that other issue: they were being shot at.

“Okay, I’m going to enable the weapons system. I’d appreciate if you didn’t shoot me in the face,” Tony breathed, just as Loki dragged him behind some crates, out of the way of a bullet.

Loki nodded.

 _It might be the most idiotic thing I’ve done in my life_ , Tony thought cheerfully and instructed Jarvis to unlock the full functions of the armor.

Five seconds passed and his face still didn’t get blasted off his skull. So far, so good. “Use the shoulder flap launcher, it has auto aim. And watch out for the power level, it’s on fifteen percent,” he advised. “On three?”

Loki nodded again. The helmet closed.

Tony had only nine bullets left in his pistol. He should’ve taken the spare ammo clip. He started counting.

On his count Loki got up, took in the room, then launched the full batch of rockets, all within maybe three seconds. Tony used the opportunity to shot at the sniper that was sneaking his way through the rafters above them. The first shot missed, the second one got the man in the shoulder.

There was a moment of silence. Then a voice sounded through the speaker system. “Stand down and give up your weapons. You’re surrounded.”

“That’s funny! It looked like we just killed like twenty of your goons!” Tony shouted back. “Are you sure you’re in the position to dictate terms?!”

“You have nowhere to run. Give up our property and you’ll be allowed to live,” the voice said.

Loki’s hands curled into fists so hard the plates shifted under his fingers. Yeah, Tony got the feeling that being called a “property” wasn’t the nicest thing one can hear.

Tony was trying to think of something witty enough to shout back, when the door behind them, the same they came through, opened and a squad of guards poured in. Unlike their colleagues, those took time to prepare, wearing heavy combat gear and carrying riffles that looked like serious business. They weren’t aiming at Loki. They were aiming at Tony.

_Well, fuck._

Soldiers stepped aside, making a way for their leader. He lowered his faceguard and removed his helmet and Tony almost chuckled. The dreadlocks looked ridiculous with the rest of his getup.

Loki removed the helmet as well and aimed the propulsor at the leader.

“You know you can’t win, _bjir_ ,” the man said, not paying Tony any attention, his eyes firmly on Loki. God’s jaw twitched at what Tony assumed was an insult. “You know that you’ll always be _ours_ , whatever you do. No matter how far you run or how well you hide, we will find you and we will make you regret you even tried. So give up now, take it nice and easy and I may consider this little blunder forgotten.”

Loki’s nostrils flared, his eyes dashing to Tony for a moment. He kept his hand up, his other curled into a fist. He knew exactly who the leader was, Tony was sure. It was personal.

“Your human can’t help you. You might think he can, but he can’t.” The leader inclined his head and all his men decocked the safety levers on their riffles, almost in unison. Loki’s eyes narrowed to slits. “Lower your weapon, take off the armor and come with us and we will let him live.”

Loki’s thumb touched the release button.

 _I’m dead_ , Tony thought numbly.

Loki fired, jerkily changing his aim the last possible moment from leader’s face to the stack of crates. A billow of splinters and a cloud of fine dust rose in the air and Loki ducked, grabbed Tony’s waist, and launched up.

“Jarvis, open the blast door!” Tony yelled and the huge gate above their heads grinded and started to part.

The lights went out and the servos moving the gate whined and stopped. 

Gunshots followed them, the flashes brightening the darkness, and Loki dodged. Tony wrapped his arm around Loki’s shoulder to stop himself from slipping down. _So this it how it feels, no wonder people hate it._

They slipped through the crack in the bulkhead, just wide enough for them to fly through.

The Quinjet hung right above, the cargo hatch opened invitingly.

Loki flew in and hovered inside for a split second. The suit ran out of charge. The boosters went out all at once and the armor crashed onto the metal floor, freezing in the default position, now hardly anything more than a four hundred pounds pile of scrap metal. Released of the clutches of the suit, Tony landed on the floor with a thud. The gunshots were still sounding, banging against the hull of the jet. He rolled on to his back and laid there, panting.

“Thanks, Jarvis,” he wheezed.

“As much as I’m programmed to enjoy being given credit,” Jarvis said, “it wasn’t me, sir.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The kid was supposed to be Billy Kaplan, but - as Wandavision managed to fuck up my continuity - let's just assume it's just a random kid with the same name.


	47. Go, go, go!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes you just go.

“Go! Go! Go!” Tony yelled and the jet slowly gained attitude.

Some more shots were fired at them, now coming from the outside of the base. One might have hit something important on the wall of the hold, judging from the shower of sparks it evoked and Tony kicked the bay door controller. He clambered to his feet as soon as it started closing.

He turned to Loki, still trapped inside the armor. “I know, I know, I’m getting you out, right now,” he said and tugged at the plate that hid the emergency release. It must be a less than an optimal experience for Loki to be confined in an inescapable contraption again.

Romanoff sprung out of the pilot seat just as Tony finally wrenched the piece of metal free and pulled on the release bar. The armor unfurled and Loki half-fell, half-stumbled out, his eyes shooting around in blind panic.

He took one wobbly step forward and his eyes focused and found Romanoff. His legs buckled and he fell to his knees. She caught him before he crumbled to the floor completely, wrapping her arms around his shoulders and pulling him into a heartfelt embrace, whispering something Tony couldn’t catch over the sound of the engines. Then, when Loki looked up at her, his eyes wide and bright and confused, she gently brushed hair away from his face and placed a kiss on his forehead.

Tony’s flustered. Because Loki – the terrifying alien god who tried to subjugate Earth, the feature act of Tony’s nightmares and panic attacks – was crying, with choking sobs and heavy tears rolling down his hollow cheeks.

Tony turned away and headed for the cockpit.

\---

It was dark and he couldn’t move, no matter how hard he strained. The sounds were muffled, drowning in the rush of blood in his ears and the desperate flutter of his heart. He tried to breathe, but the metal pressed on his chest and throat and there was no more air, just darkness and panic and shouts and gunfire.

His head started to swim, the darkness turning red at the edges.

Then the armor opened suddenly and – devoid of its support – Loki stumbled out. Someone caught him. Loki looked up and his mind blanked out.

“I told you I’ll come,” Natasha whispered and held him in her arms and for a moment Loki forgot about the darkness, the pain and the fear, lost in her light.

\---

Loki fell asleep in Romanoff’s arms. Tony kept his eyes firmly on the outside, his fingers gripping the yoke with way more force than necessary.

“Did you know that he was forced into attacking us in New York and it took a year of torture before he gave in?” said Natasha in a light, casual tone, like it was a perfectly normal thing to utter in a conversation. “Oh, and he was under the influence of the scepter the whole time.”

“I must’ve missed that part of your report.” Tony turned in his seat to face her, put down the headset, slid lower in the chair and crossed his legs. The autopilot was on anyway. “Seriously, Romanoff, what the hell are you playing at?”

“Nothing.” Her fingers smoothed Loki’s hair, her other arm still cradling him protectively. There was tenderness in the gesture Tony wouldn’t suspect her even capable of. “I just thought you should know.”

“Hell, yeah I should. Preferably _before_ I risked my life breaking your alien boyfriend out of a Nazi super-prison? Don’t you feel like that was kinda an important detail?”

“I would tell you if you didn’t agree without it. But you did and there was no point in making you think I’m playing you for pity or I’m being manipulated myself.”

“Oh, so _not telling_ me was not at all a deception?”

She rolled her free shoulder and sighed. “You don’t seem too surprised.”

“It makes sense,” Tony admitted.

“It does, doesn’t it?”

Tony nodded, slowly, and didn’t stop until the motion died down on its own. “You think they didn’t know or just didn’t care?”

Her shrug was more deliberate this time. “Doesn’t matter,” she said numbly, pulled her sleeve over her palm using her teeth and wiped some of the blood and grime from Loki’s face. “The outcome is exactly the same.”

Unable to avoid the reality before his eyes anymore, Tony looked down at the Norse god of mischief, curled up unconscious on the floor of their stolen Quinjet, looking like an overzealous Holocaust movie extra, every rise and fall of the sunken chest a labored effort, apparently as much of a victim in all this clusterfuck as the rest of them.

Tony felt sick again.

“What the fuck are we even doing, Romanoff?”

“No idea,” she said quietly, and her fingertips traced the too-sharp line of Loki’s cheekbone, just above the metal. “But it feels like the right thing to do.”

“Yeah,” he muttered and turned back to the cockpit. “It does.”

\---

They set the engines to twenty percent power and turned off all the unnecessary features, including cabin heating. Tony shivered and pulled the jacket he liberated from one of the lockers closer around himself. The temperature was in the low forties. The Quinjet operating system still kept on flashing the warning about insufficient energy levels.

Romanoff flopped into the co-pilot seat. Loki came to in the meantime, if briefly, and she managed to convince him to move to a makeshift bed she made with a pile of safety blankets she found in the back. At least this time he appeared to be asleep and not knocked out cold, which Tony counted as a good thing.

“I thought we are heading back to New York,” she said, tapping the side screen, the only one that was still on, to zoom in on the route, “but we are clearly not.”

“Change of plans. We can’t make it that far,” Tony said. He couldn’t connect his arc reactor to the charging port of the jet without the suit and it was drained to the point he wouldn’t be able to put it on without manually bending the plates around himself. “Besides, there must be a metric shit-ton of camera footage and a legion of eyewitnesses who saw me there and it’s only the matter of time before the Hydra fucks come knocking at my door. And the tower is the first door they will check.” He tried to keep his tone relaxed, not quite sure he managed. “Same with the mansion, plus I have no workshop set up there. We need a safe place, something that can’t be traced to my name easily, because, no offence, but I don’t think the two of us can take them head on. And our wannabe benevolent ruler of the Earth over there doesn’t look like he can survive much more of their jolly treatment.”

He didn’t want to look, so he just waved his hand loosely towards the back of the plane. As if called out, Loki shifted in his sleep, setting the chains to clinking.

“What about Pepper?”

“She’s on a work trip in India. Happy is with her. I messaged him already to be on a lookout, but they should be safe so far away, at least for a while, until I figure out something more permanent.”

“So, what’s in… Shithole, Middle of Nowhere, Maine?” she asked, still studying the map.

“A safe place, I hope. And someone who might be able to help.”

She crooked her head and appraised Tony’s answer with a pout.

“Oh, you don’t trust me all of sudden, Barbarella?”

“One more stupid nickname and I’ll punch your teeth so far in you’ll have to spend half of your fortune on search and rescue operations to ever find them again,” she said with a pleasant smile. “Who’s _someone_?”

“A friend.”

“The shortlist of people whom I trust right now is not that extensive and the way you’re acting is making me want to cut it one position shorter.”

“You will see. I’m not going to spoil the surprise. Also, cool your cucumbers, Romanoff, and don’t forget, we are in this together now. If shit goes down, I have everything on the line as well.”

“Having second thoughts?”

“Not at all.”

She sighed. “Then why didn’t you remove the shackles? Loki is in no condition to run, even if he wanted to.”

She’s been eyeing the chain hatefully since Tony brought Loki onboard (or the other way around, rather), so he wasn’t surprised by the question.

“I’m not worried about that. I just can’t,” he admitted with a wave of hand. He took a closer look at the manacles when the god was unconscious and found no keyhole, not even a visible seam or hinge, like they were made of one solid piece of metal. “It’s vibranium. Or, more likely, a vibranium-beryllium alloy, and my laser beam didn’t even scratch it. And – as you probably noticed – there’s no obvious way to open them with tools. The material is too dense for my portable scanner, but, if I had to guess I’d say it’s a magnetic lock. And that will take some fiddling and some more advanced equipment in _my workshop_ to find the right frequency.”

“Shit, what kind of funding do they have to gain access to that?”

“My thoughts exactly. Goddamned Nazi bastards,” Tony agreed. “There’s one more thing,” he added, lowering his voice. “There was this kid who we found on our way out. Scrawny and scared out of his mind. And a wizard, apparently. He recognized Loki and admitted he was forced to put some sort of spell or enchantment or something equally Dungeon-and-dragony on the shackles. I’m not sure what it’s supposed to do, but Loki didn’t seem happy about it being there, and, from context, they probably used it for torture. Well, another kind of it, at least. You happen to know what that might be about?”

She rubbed her eyelids with her thumb and index finger. “Yeah. The muzzle not only blocks Loki’s own magic, but also hurts him if he has magic used _on_ him, willingly or not. Or if he even thinks of taking it off, _literally_. Or makes any sort of sound with his vocal cords.”

“Fuck me,” Tony muttered numbly once the initial shock wore off. “Someone must really hate him, back home.”

“Tell me about it,” she said, looking at the distance behind the windshield. The sky was growing pink in the East, they weren’t going fast enough to outrun the sunrise line. “What happened to the kid?”

Tony told her, carefully skipping around the part where Loki writhed on the floor in agony.

“I see. Too bad, he might need help.”

“So do the others.”

“Others?”

“There were more prisoners there, Romanoff. Or test subjects, as they were fondly called in the logs. You told me and I believed you, but… There were dozens of people there. Hundreds, maybe. And the way they are treated…” He sighed. “I knew I couldn’t help everyone right then and there, that would be a suicide and would help no one in the long run, but hell… It really shouldn’t be that complicated. This was a civilized country. This shouldn’t fly. And definitely not under a banner of a US government agency.”

“It’s been going on for years, Stark. And not only with Hydra. They are just a tumor that grows on an already sick organ. There was this whole buzz about Guantanamo, protests and public outrage, and Ellis yielded. Guess what? It wasn’t because it was the right thing to do. No. He needed it to go away, so no one would dig deeper. This is only the tip of the iceberg. The black sites, the Fridge, the CIA prisons in Europe, Africa and Middle East, the bases on the Pacific, who knows how many more outposts like the one we just visited. People just go in and no one hears about them ever again. Hell, you think SHIELD was taking Loki on a field trip when we were attacked?!” She was yelling at this point and Tony just watched with wide eyes, too stunned to stop her. “I’ve seen it, Stark. I’ve seen it all. I’ve worked for them and let them pat me on the head for a job well fucking done after I snuffed out lives on the other end of the world, without a cause or explanation, just because the targets knew something they weren’t supposed to, asked wrong questions, or could do things that were not to someone’s liking. You can fill five ‘Battle of New York’ memorial plaques with the names of people Uncle Sam disappears in the name of public security, each fucking year! So don’t tell me what should and shouldn’t fly, because you have no idea what the fuck you are talking about!”

She ran out of the pent-up anger and slumped, panting slightly.

“It doesn’t mean it’s okay to just leave it like that,” he said quietly after a moment.

“I tried. And only succeeded at getting people I cared about hurt or killed. It’s like… every time I try to do something, it makes things even worse,” she said. “But you’re right, it does not make it okay.”

“Viva la revolution,” Tony uttered darkly and turned off the autopilot. They’ve arrived.

\---

The “safe place” Stark talked about turned out to be a house in a clearing in the middle of a forest. At first glance from up above it looked like a lodge or an oversized cabin, with a smaller outbuilding in the back, closer to the line of the trees, and a rough stone path running towards the forest. But, as they ascended, more details became obvious. Under the dark shingle of the mansard roof hid a modern construction, with full height, tinted windows and textured concrete on the walls.

“Jarvis, open the barn for us,” Starks said and the roof on the shed started to part.

It was Stark after all and he just didn’t do “rustic”.

Stark guided the plane inside expertly. Flying out in the open with an autopilot engaged was one thing and performing a complicated landing maneuver with most auxiliary support systems turned off was another. It seemed that his pilot’s license wasn’t just for show, unlike a lot of other aspects of his character.

Stark got up and approached Loki, then stood over him and watched with a furrowed brow. Natasha curled her hands into fists. Stark dropped into a crouch and shook Loki’s shoulder. “Hey, princess, time to wake up.”

Loki stirred and his eyes dashed around. With what looked like ultimate effort, he propped himself on his shaky arms, shuffled his legs and tried skulking away towards the back wall.

“It’s all right,” she said, shoving Stark out of the way and dropping to her knees. Loki calmed down the moment his eyes landed on her. There was that familiar tug behind her sternum and she smiled. “We are in a safe place. Just a few more steps and you can rest. Can you do that?”

He nodded.

“Let’s get you up.”

Loki allowed her to grab his hand and pull it over her shoulders, then attempted to stand up, but his legs wouldn’t obey him.

Without saying a word, Stark grabbed Loki’s other arm.

The hatch didn’t react to the button, there wasn’t enough power left in the cells for the pneumatic servos to work. Stark kicked it open and it fell out, raising a cloud of dust into the air.

Loki’s hand on her shoulder was a familiar, cool presence. She wrapped her arm closer around his waist as they moved towards the main building, and for the first time since the doomed flight so many months ago she felt… home.

\---

The double glass door slipped aside as they approached. The living area was spacious and tastefully furnished, although not as sleek as the usual Stark-brand interiors she saw so far, with accents of dark wood and textured fabrics, a big, round couch with fluffy cushions in the middle and a massive fireplace by one of the walls.

“Where to now?” she asked.

Stark’s eyes jumped to the door on the left that looked suspiciously like it led into the basement, then quickly reconsidered. “Guest bedroom, down that hall,” he said, tipping his chin in the opposite direction.

They walked down the darkened corridor and almost reached the end when one of the doors on the side flew open and a man hurried out, his silhouette barely visible in the pale light of sunrise seeping from the room.

“What is this?” he asked.

“Hi, Bruce,” Stark said. “Jarvis, can you give us some light?”

A couple wall lamps came on. Loki’s fingers squeezed Natasha’s arm, then he dug his heels and tried jerking away.

“Hey, it’s fine,” Stark said. “He’s a friend.”

Banner rubbed his eyes and blinked. “Tony? What is…” He paused, taking in the scene before his eyes. “Uhm…”

“I’ll explain later,” Stark said curtly. “And get dressed, we are going to need you.”

Banner stared at them for a couple more seconds, his eyes dashing between Stark, Natasha and finally landing on Loki. He grunted something unintelligible and returned to his room without saying anything else.

Stark turned back to Loki. “Come on, princess, it’s not far.”

Loki hesitated for a few seconds, then conceded.

Stark led them into a room and Natasha assessed it quickly. It indeed appeared to be just an upscale bedroom, with a king-size bed, fluffy carpet and a line of windows creating the entire opposite wall. There were no bars, the window panes looked just like regular glass and the door had a standard lock. She swallowed the sigh of relief. Of course, Stark might consider it just a temporary solution, but she would deal with that once they got there.

Stark pulled away the covers and guided Loki onto the bed. Loki hissed in pain when Stark grabbed his arm during his manhandling attempts. Stark pried his hands away immediately. “Sorry,” he muttered.

“I got this,” Natasha said and Stark stepped away, relieved. She helped Loki get his legs on the bed, but he protested when she tried to settle him down on his back.

“That’s how they kept him…” Stark said, his voice barely more than a whisper.

She closed her eyes. Between Stark’s words and the stains on the rags Loki was wearing she didn’t need more. “On your side then?” she asked and Loki gave her a small nod. She fluffed the pillow and helped him down. “Is this okay?”

He moved his wrist for “yes” and she smiled. “You remember,” she said and then chuckled at the shadow of the indignant glare. That was exactly the way she expected her… the old Loki to react. “You want a blanket?”

_[No.]_

Yeah, she figured.

\---

Stark left the room not long after, which was probably for the best. Just as the door closed behind him, Loki let out a breath and allowed his eyelids to fall, some of the tension already draining away. She sat down on the edge of the bed but, as much as she yearned to comfort him, hold his hand, so he knew she was still there, she didn’t. There was hardly a patch on his skin that wasn’t covered in cuts or sores or bruises and she didn’t want to cause him more discomfort that he was already in. Her core shimmered and she wished she could let that power flow through her fingers, mend his wounds, soothe his pains.

When Stark returned, perhaps half an hour later, dragging Banner along, Loki was dozing off. He shifted minutely when the men arrived, but didn’t open his eyes. Natasha suspected he was listening, but she didn’t mention it, allowing the scene to play out on its own.

“Maybe we should come back later?” Banner whispered timidly. He changed out of his pajamas, had his glasses back on his nose and was carrying the most classic doctor’s bag Natasha she has ever seen.

“Come on, we have to know what we are dealing with here,” Stark murmured back, just as quietly. “You can save the details for later but I need to know if I have to call someone in.”

Banner nodded, still not entirely convinced. He shuffled further into the room and leaned over the bed.

“Loki? Are you awake?” he said. His tone was calm and collected, but there was still an insecure edge to it. “My name’s Bruce. I’m a doctor… erm, a healer… of some kind. Is it all right if I examine you?”

Loki’s eyes flew open and he studied the man in front of him, then his gaze fell to Natasha.

“It’s okay,” she ensured him. “He is telling the truth.”

Loki’s face still showed hesitation.

“I can stay if you want,” she offered.

He brought up his arm and traced a circle over his chest with an open hand.

“Okay, I will,” she said with a smile.

“I’m out. I’ll be in the living room, if someone needs me,” Stark offered and left.

\---

Tony wanted to start with a cup of coffee, but no matter how many times he turned the knobs on the coffee machine, it still didn’t taste right, so he gave up and poured himself a double whiskey. That helped to settle the conflicting thoughts rummaging in his head at least.

One side of him wanted to act. Put on the armor, fly to DC and punch Pierce in the face until he was just a bleeding husk on the ground, then continue all thorough Romanoff’s list until every goddamned piece of Nazi scum was gone. But Romanoff was right, if they didn’t do it properly it wasn’t going to stop, it would only make them crawl into their holes, hiding their tracks, burying the evidence.

Going public was the only reasonable action, but they needed more. No, not more. Everything. They needed the location of every secret base, designation of every compromised unit, name of every person held hostage. They needed to be thorough, because if there was just one root left, that weed would grow back, like it did after Cap took out Hydra’s leader in the forties.

How did they put it? Chop off one head, two more grow back?

_Ugh._

Tony already scouted ahead, but the Council database was a hard nut to crack, throwing him off before he could get more than a peek. Sure, he got a thing or two, but at this rate it would take years and Tony wasn’t interested in waiting that long.

Now he only needed to find a way that wouldn’t endanger himself or the people he cared about. Or anyone innocent, truly.

_Like Loki._

Thinking about the god in those terms was weird, but the longer he turned the thought around in his head the more natural it felt. And the state he found the god in made it even harder to hold a grudge against him. Loki might not be the shining beacon of rightfulness, but – whatever his sins truly were – he’s been punished enough.

They succeeded at getting him out and he might yet get a chance to recover, at least physically, but it didn’t feel like a triumph. How many more people were still stuck in the dark, without someone like Romanoff on the outside to mount a rescue, without any hope? How many more like those dozens he willfully ignored? He was there and he left, without doing anything.

No, it wasn’t a victory, not at all.

He sighed and got up to pour himself another glass.

The door to Loki’s room opened and Bruce stepped into the living area. He came over to the couch and clapped down with a heavy sigh, dropping the tablet he was carrying onto the seat next to him and the bag on the floor. He undid the top button of his shirt and ran his hand through his hair.

Tony eyed him closely, looking for the hints of green. “You look pale. Do I need to get my armor on?”

Bruce shook his head. “No, I’m fine. I just… I think I’m not this kind of doctor, Tony,” he said.

“Oh come on, don’t give me that! You worked as a physician before and you know this is an emergency…”

“No, that’s not what I meant. I just don’t…” he flustered then met Tony’s gaze. “I don’t know how he is still alive, Tony.”

Tony sat down next to him. “What do you mean?”

“I ran just a cursory scan and a basic examination, Loki was barely lucid as he was, but…” He paused and took a deep breath. “His neural system is in shambles because of the drugs they kept him on. That alone should make him a vegetable, yet he is coherent enough to answer questions. There’s not a single organ in his body that’s not damaged in some way, because the parenteral nutrition he was on wasn’t covering even a fraction of what his body requires to function. It’s easier to list which bones hasn’t been broken, some still are… I don’t even know how he is able to move his hands, since most of his metacarpal bones are shattered. He has pressure ulcers on a good portion of his back and lower body because they kept him in one position for months, some of it is infected and it looks like it’s not the first time. And I have no idea how to even start to interpret his body temperature. Or these,” he added, waving his hand at the tablet.

The display showed a chart that Tony guessed was some sort of blood test results. “So… Are you saying that there’s nothing you can do?”

“If he were human, he would be dead, many times over,” Bruce judged, numbly. “But he is not and I don’t know if anything I _can_ do is going to help or make it even worse. I’m groping blindly here, Tony. For now, I cleaned the worst of his wounds and gave him an IV with fluids, some mild analgesics, too. By the way, he refused the painkillers at first and Natasha had to talk him into it before he agreed.” He sighed. “I guess we will have to see if it works at all… I’m going to need more specialized equipment than I have here. A TPN setup and some proper, high-protein formula, enteral feeding machine for later… The central line equipment, too, because the catheter wasn’t maintained properly and the artery is scarred and we might need to redo it.”

“Just tell Jarvis what you need, he will make a short order.”

“I already did,” Bruce said and flexed his fingers, then tossed his head back in frustration.

“What is it?”

“They just… took him apart, Tony. Bit by bit, until there was almost nothing left, yet he still lived. How much longed would he last if you didn’t get him out? Months? Years? Decades?”

Tony didn’t answer, because, no matter what he would say, it wouldn’t make it any better.

\---

Banner looked shaken when he left and she was just glad he was done, at least for now. Loki was barely able to keep his eyes open by the end of the exam and there were parts where she had to force herself to watch. She swallowed, fighting the surge of nausea. It was all her fault, if she got there earlier, before…

The door opened and Stark’s head appeared in the crack. “Romanoff? There’s a…” His eyes fell onto Loki’s nearly naked form, only a piece of thin bedsheets Natasha found in one of the drawers covering his nether regions. Loki’s clothes had to be cut away so Banner could tend to his injuries and there was nothing to replace them in the room. They also had to turn Loki over to his other side, with his ruined back towards the door, because that was apparently the only position in which the tube in his vein was still permeable. Stark walked right onto what was quite a disturbing sight for anyone with at least a scrap of empathy left. “I’ll be right back,” he uttered and disappeared.

He returned a moment later carrying a bundle of white fabric. He gingerly placed it on the armoire. “Here’s some clothes. It’s not much, but…”

She gave him a small nod.

“This is the only bedroom besides the main and Bruce is occupying that one for now. I’ll get something arranged later, but there’s a daybed in the library if you want to get some sleep.”

“I’d rather stay here, but thanks,” she said. “What about you?”

“I have a couch in the workshop. It’s really comfy,” he said with a chuckle, but it didn’t sound too convincing and his smile faded almost immediately. His eyes dashed back to Loki. “Is there anything else I can do?”

“No, thank you, Stark.” She paused. “For everything. I wouldn’t be able to do it on my own.”

“Don’t mention it.” He turned to leave.

“Hey, one more thing… How did you find Banner?”

“Easy. I’ve never lost him,” he smirked and left.

\---

The sun travelled the sky, but Banner said Loki’s eyes needed more time to adjust after so long in the dark, so she kept the curtains drawn.

Banner returned a couple more times, to check on Loki and replace the IV bags but he didn’t say much when she asked about the progress. “It’s too early to say,” was all he had to offer.

It was well into the afternoon when Loki woke up. She was nodding off, curled in the chair by the window but stirred immediately when he started moving and the chains clinked. They didn’t even bother with removing the shackles she got stuck on his wrist all those months ago…

“Hi,” she said and cleared her throat.

 _[Hi,]_ his hand spelled and he moved to sit up and got somewhere halfway through. She scrambled out of the chair and helped him, adding another pillow so he could rest in a reclined position.

“You shouldn’t be moving too much yet.”

_[I’m fine.]_

She smiled but it was a bitter smile. She witnessed him say it too many times to believe he actually was.

 _[You look ill.]_ He spelled the adjective. He still couldn’t get his left hand to cooperate, the shackles weighting it down.

“I’m just… tired, that’s all. It’s nothing, don’t worry about it.”

She sat down on the edge of the bed. Loki reached out and brushed the back of his palm on her knuckles. Her eyes started to prickle again. He patted the empty space between them.

“I don’t want to hurt you.”

_[You won’t.]_

“Will you go back to sleep if I join you?”

_[Yes.]_

She lay down on the bed, facing him. “I have something to show you,” she whispered. She curled her fingers and brought forth the light, its shimmer reflecting in Loki’s eyes. He covered her hand with his own and she brought the whisp down, so it hovered just above his skin. “Can you feel it?”

He shook his head.

“I will describe it to you,” she promised.

She talked, in a hushed tone, until his eyelids fell and his breathing evened out. She stayed there, unwilling to disturb him, until she fell asleep herself.

\---

“Natasha?” came to her in an insecure whisper and someone shook her shoulder.

She opened her eyes. She was still in the bed, but she curled closer to Loki in her sleep, with her head to his chest. His arm was around her waist, too. He was still asleep.

The hand on her shoulder moved again. “I’m awake,” she whispered back. “Just give me a sec.”

“Okay,” Bruce’s voice responded, “we’re waiting in the kitchen. Brainstorming time.”

With that Banner let go of her arm and left. She lingered another minute before she untangled herself and slowly got off the bed. Loki stirred and his fingers twitched at the loss of contact, but he didn’t wake up. She rearranged the sheets around him and gently brushed hair away from his face.

She left the side table lamp on.

The house was darkened as she moved through it and the clock in the hallway informed her it’s three thirty in the morning. She slept for at least ten hours, maybe more.

Stark and Banner were indeed in the kitchen. Bruce was reading something on his laptop’s screen, taking notes in a notepad. Stark sat hunched over an empty coffee cup, his face in his hands.

“What’s up?”

Stark groaned and dragged his hands down. He had dark circles under his eyes and his goatee has seen better days. “We are trying to figure out what to do now.”

“With?”

“Everything,” Stark groaned again. “Bruce is trying to figure out how to fix Loki, I’m trying to find a way to deal with the goddamned legion of Nazis. We’re both failing spectacularly.” He got up and grabbed his cup. “Coffee?”

She shook her head. “Why didn’t you wake me up earlier?”

“I had to sleep it off too,” Stark said. “Only Bruce was a busybody.”

“I’m still trying to find out what we’re dealing with here,” Banner said in an exasperated tone. “I’ve been going through the medical records we got for Thor, both from SHIELD and what Tony got after the battle, but it doesn’t make any sense.”

She clapped down and ran her hand through her hair. “That’s because Loki’s not Aesir.”

Bruce frowned.

She took a deep breath. It felt like betraying Loki’s trust, but this was a medical emergency. Without that knowledge, Banner might inadvertently make it worse while trying to help. “He is not of the same species,” she said. “Remember what Thor told us about Loki being adopted? Well, it turns out Thor’s father kidnapped him from a whole different planet. They are called the Jotnar and it’s a race of… uhm, Loki described them as Ice Giants. They’ve been on Earth before, apparently. A long time ago.”

“That would explain the body temperature at least,” Stark tossed in without turning away from the coffee machine. “But he doesn’t look all that giant to me. Okay, the guy is still a head taller than me, but a lot of people are, so…”

“Okay, so we can try searching the databases for that, perhaps SHIELD has dealt with the species before,” Banner interjected before Stark got too carried away. He started typing.

“I don’t think it would work. Odin used some sort of… spell on him, to change his appearance, and that’s a physical change, not just an illusion.”

“So he is a sort of… what, a magical hybrid?”

“Something like that.”

Stark returned to the table. “That’s just great. Magic, spells, unique mystical creatures…”

“Loki is a person, Stark,” she snarled.

“I know he is. That’s why we are trying to _help him_ , in case you didn’t notice.”

Banner tapped his fingers on the table and bit the end of his pen. “Hmm, that actually helps. It could mean those proteins are something his body produces naturally, and the blood composition is altered to accommodate for lower body temperature…” He started writing, still murmuring to himself.

She turned back to Stark. “What happens on the SHIELD front?”

“So far, it’s business as usual. I’ve intercepted some internal comms, but nothing official yet. There was a bunch of sad men in suits at the tower, but they carried no badges and Jarvis put the private section at total lockdown, so they just spoke to some of my employees and got exactly jack shit.”

“So, what’s the plan?”

“The same as it ever was. Make it public, take it all down, the sooner the better. They are cooking something big, here in US. If I had to guess, it has something to do with that Helicarrier project Fury wanted me to consult a few months back. One of those costs eight hundred mil and the division has already sucked in like two billions over the last year and pumped the prices of vanadium and tungsten on the market with their big orders. So they are building a couple, and fast, and I have no idea what for, since they are not that convenient and cost too much to operate.”

“Can we find more on that?”

“No, at least not that easily. It’s all on the Council’s servers and they are too well protected.”

“They have… an AI on their own.”

Stark crooked his head and raised an eyebrow. “And how do you know that?”

“A friend. She hacked in for me to help me find Loki. She said something about… a DNN?”

Stark whistled. “I’d like to know your friend,” he said with a smile.

“She is dead. Hydra killed her because she helped me.”

There was a moment of silence.

“I will call Fury and tell him I changed my mind about the project,” Stark said after a while, “and maybe he will let me in. If I give it a breathing room of at a couple of days he might not make the connection.”

“If he is in on that he would know you had your hands at breaking out Loki and you’d be walking into a deathtrap.”

“What can you do… You think they would risk disappearing _me_?”

“They disappeared Loki,” she said numbly.

“What do you suggest then?”

“I’m a fugitive from law, you’re just a controversial billionaire playboy with a troubled past and a hero complex, Banner is more known as the green rage monster that wrecked Harlem and Loki is the guy who released an alien swarm over New York. We are too easy to discredit, no matter how loud we yell. This needs _a face._ Someone whom people trust.”

“I think I know where this is going.”

“Rogers.”

“No way. He won’t listen. He got all bristled up when I told him SHIELD is hiding stuff and that’s like the elementary school level of civic awareness.”

“And then he went down and searched for it himself. He is self-righteous and has outdated ideas about patriotism, but he is not mentally challenged. There must be an argument that would convince him. We just need to find it.”

“It must be a goddamned good argument, cause if we go to him and he doesn’t listen we are toasted. If we get Captain America going medieval on our asses right now there’s no way we are making this right. And I can already tell I don’t enjoy hiding in a dank hole.”

She looked around. “Your definition of a ‘dank hole’ is peculiar,” she said.

Stark chuckled, but there was something nervous about it. He was way more anxious about the situation than he let out. And he let out quite a bit. “Any suggestions on how to approach Rogers?”

“Not yet.”

Stark slumped his shoulders. “We still have a few days to figure it out. We need to see how things settle first. With…” His eyes dashed down the hall, where Loki’s bedroom was. “Everything.”

She nodded.

Bruce pushed his fingers under his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “Okay, I think I have an idea where to start. I’ll still need to go through the data on Loki Jarvis downloaded when you were… down there, but I think we might be able to synthesize a formula that would work for him. His body is way more resilient than human one, so perhaps it will deal with the worst if given a chance to heal.”

He stood up. “I’ll be down in the workshop if someone needs me.”

“You should get some sleep too,” Stark suggested.

“There will be time for that later,” he said and walked out of the kitchen.

Stark took a swig of his coffee.

“Stark?”

“Mhm?”

“I know it’s spells and magic and…” she started, then rubbed her fingers on her temples. “You think you’d be able to do something about the muzzle?”

“I don’t know,” Stark admitted. “I went through the data SHIELD gathered when they tried taking it off first and it doesn’t make any sense. It’s an extremely strong material, but… It’s just that, a piece of metal. It doesn’t have a microprocessor that could be programmed, nothing that would explain its ability to react the way it does.”

“That’s the magical part.”

Tony nodded. “I’ll try. It might work. After all, we have something that they didn’t when they tried.”

She raised an eyebrow. “What is that?”

“The expert’s input.”


	48. Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Every time you think Asgard and the way they treat Loki couldn’t be any worse, it somehow turns out it can.”

Loki lay on the soft bed. His mind was clear, there was no pain, the room was warm and light seeped through the curtains. Natasha was here, not so long ago, alive and well.

He reveled in the feeling, trying to decide whether it was just a very pleasant dream or if he was dead and the afterlife not only existed, but turned out to be located in a bedroom on Midgard.

Then the events of the last days dripped slowly into his mind: Stark, the daring escape, Natasha, the flight, the Beast turned healer. He methodically wrapped his thoughts around the concepts. As a sum, it made even less sense than the afterlife theory.

He pushed himself up and at a moment’s notice had to reassess the “no pain” statement. It wasn’t that bad though. The drug the mortal doctor gave him dulled the aches enough to make it tolerable.

The plastic tube tugged at his chest and he followed it to the container it connected to. The doctor told him about the new formula, he remembered, then went on to explain how it was supposed to make him better, using Midgardian medical terminology Loki wasn’t at all familiar with. It seemed to have worked, whatever it was. Loki did feel better. Better than he remembered feeling in a long time.

The container was empty now, so he pulled the tube free without regret.

He clambered out of bed, tripped on the chain almost immediately and nearly came down, but caught his balance in the end, then started exploring his new prison. Stark was indeed a benevolent jailmaster; on Asgard such luxuries were rarely granted even to the unlucky nobles who were to be imprisoned. Not that Loki himself ever earned that privilege, it wouldn’t have the desired “educative effect”, as Odin was known to say. No, the cell that always awaited him, perhaps even right now, was deep beneath the foundations of the royal castle, carved out in the very rock the Asgard stood upon, dark and damp and cloying…

Loki shook his head and continued his exploration. Besides the bed and two accompanying nightstands that took the central spot in the room, there was a credenza, finely crafted of some dark wood, with a display panel right above, currently turned off, two armchairs that looked comfortable enough to sit in, a small side table between the chairs, a desk and a shelf right next it, with a couple of books and some loose items Loki couldn’t name but guessed served mostly ornamental purposes. The perspective of being able to read a book was tempting, but Loki decided to leave that part of the survey for last.

There were two doors. First, the narrower one on the wall with the bed, was open and led into a small bathroom. There was no bath, but there was a shower stall, which was one of the human inventions Loki was quite fond of. Leave it to mortals to find a way to make even something basic like ablutions more time-effective.

Satisfied with the inspection he turned to the other, more concerning door – the one leading outside – then stopped dead in his tracks. There was a key in the lock. On the inside.

Was it a test? Or an honest mistake?

_One way to find out._

He reached for the handle.

“Mr. Odinson, it’s generally recommended to wear clothes outside of one’s bedroom.”

He jumped away as if burned, the chain tangled around his ankles and he collapsed, landing with his bare buttocks on the carpet.

 _Damn_. He entirely forgot about the assistant. About clothes, too.

Not completely sure he could muster the strength to get up right away, he lay back instead, which turned out to be another mistake, as his sore back didn’t feel any better for it. He let out a sigh and faced the corner the voice came from, guessing that was also where the hidden eye of the camera was located. _[That’s not my name,]_ he said.

“Excuse me, sir. My database indicates it’s customary for people of Asgard to use patronyms as such. Allow me to correct the mistake. Would you like to set a different preferred address, sir?”

Loki hesitated.

“My search shows you used your place of origin as introduction in the past. Should I address you as ‘Loki of Asgard’?

 _[No,]_ he said and there was a moment of silence. The assistant still awaited his reply. _[It’s just… Loki.]_

_Loki, of nowhere, son of no-one._

“Very well. Do you have any other concerns, Loki?”

Loki furled and unfurled his fingers, deliberating, before he decided to go on. _[Am I allowed to leave the room?]_

“Yes. Should I fetch someone to assist you?”

_[No, thank you.]_

“All right. I’ll notify Mr. Stark you’re awake.”

 _[No, don’t,]_ he showed frantically. _[Please.]_

His current situation was most likely just a temporary measure, to put him at ease while he was still healing. There was no way he would be allowed freedom of the house if Stark didn’t believe him too weak to pose a threat. If the mortal learns he is already up, he might desire to change the conditions. And Loki didn’t even get the chance to use the shower.

Pleading to the assistant was pointless though and Loki was ashamed of that outburst. Jarvis was Stark’s servant, Loki had no power over him and only made a fool of himself.

“Very well. I’m here if you require further assistance, sir.”

Loki blinked, then he remembered Jarvis’ inexplicable behavior back in the prison. It must be the effect of the same error in the programing. Unless he was just lied to and mortals were on their way to…

 _No_. He was overreacting, his insecurity fueled by panic and weakness. Stark treated him more than fairly so far. He rescued him from what was destined to be his demise, refused to hand him back over to his captors even when threatened with death, reunited him with Natasha and brought him to a place where he could heal in a relative safety. That was more than Loki could ever ask for, considering his actions against the realm and the mortal himself. More so, if Stark wanted him to suffer until he perished, he would have left him where he was. And, if the revenger were Stark’s only motivation, Natasha wouldn’t have allied with him. This was good. This was manageable. This Loki could deal with, and perhaps in time…

He gritted his teeth, pulled himself up from the floor, then shuffled to the bathroom.

He opened the tap, stuck his face under the stream and drank, for a long time, until the thirst that burned in his throat finally abated and faded away.

He straightened up and froze. There was a mirror above the sink. The face that stared back at him from it was that of a stranger. Their features were sharp and angular, their complexion pallid and sickly and the dark shadows under their eyes so deep they looked like bruises. Loki’s fingers brushed the glass, tracing the lines the muzzle marked on the unfamiliar physiognomy.

He never got the opportunity to see how it looks.

The stranger’s features twisted in disgust and Loki averted his gaze, his cheeks burning with shame.

\---

The water in the shower was pleasantly warm and the soap he found in the cupboard had an appealing flowery scent. He washed his hair, then stood under the streams until his skin started to prickle and the water that flowed down the drain was no longer murky with grime.

He wrapped himself in a soft towel then went back to the room. There were clothes, waiting for him. He put the trousers away – he wouldn’t be able to put them on with the fetters in place – then unfolded the shirt. There was Stark’s company logo printed on the chest in bold, dark letters, just like there were SHIELD’s insignias on the garb he wore in the dungeon. He sighed and pulled the shirt on. It was too big, but not long enough to cover all the decency required to be covered, so, after quick deliberation, he grabbed the piece of fabric Natasha brough him, folded it in half and tied it around his waist. It would have to do.

He searched the bathroom cabinet and the credenza for something to comb his hair with, but found nothing, so he settled on smoothing it out with his fingers the best he could. He sat down on the bed, considering his next move. Should he try venturing out into the hallway and testing Jarvis’ assertion? That seemed like a decent idea, but carried a risk of running into either Stark or Banner and Loki wasn’t sure he was ready for what was to come next yet, whatever it was.

The light in the room changed, he realized with a start. The change was gradual, that’s why he didn’t notice it before, but the room looked different than it did when he woke up. He couldn’t guess why. The only source of light was on the other side of the curtains so he drew them back and…

It wasn’t a solid wall with a light panel. It wasn’t a glowing energy field, like in the holding cells in Asgard. It was a window. To _outside_.

The low clouds rolled on the sky above the line of the forest. It was raining.

He pressed his forehead and his palms to the cool glass pane and watched, mesmerized. 

“Loki,” came the voice from the corner again, “Mr. Stark has inquired about your wellbeing and I was bound to inform him you’ve awoken. He requests your presence in the workshop, at your own convenience.”

Loki had to use all his mental strength to peel himself away from the window.

There was no other choice. He ran out of time.

 _[Thank you,]_ he said. _[Can you tell me the way?]_

\---

Natasha was in the living room and she sprung from her seat the moment she saw him enter.

“What the hell are you doing? You shouldn’t be up!”

 _[Stark called me,]_ he said.

“I’m going to kill him!” she snarled and started towards the door to the basement.

Loki grabbed her hand. _[It’s okay. I want to go.]_ As much as he dreaded the encounter, not knowing what it was that Stark was going to ask of him was tenfold worse.

She stared at him for a moment, judging. “Okay. Do you want me to go with you?”

Loki shook his head. He needed to do it on his own. He couldn’t depend on Natasha in this.

She sighed. “I’ll be here then, if you needed anything.” With some hesitation, she went back to where she was sitting by the fireplace. Loki could still feel her gaze on himself, until he reached the door and pushed it open.

It was a long way down.

\---

The workshop’s door whooshed open. Tony looked up from the magnifying device he was working with and raised an eyebrow.

Romanoff was nowhere in sight, so it looked like Loki made it all the way to the workshop without her assistance. Which was kind of admirable in its own right, given how he couldn’t stand up just three days ago and Bruce was concerned he might not make it.

It wasn’t anything short of amazing how much Loki was able to recover in such little time, given just proper nutrition and lack of torture.

He was still barefoot and dressed in the lab shirt Tony brought him, a couple sizes too big, draped loosely over his thin frame; the low v-cut of the collar showing too much of his pale, bruised chest. It was the sort of garment one was supposed to wear over other clothes, not instead of them, but it was also the only article of clothing Tony could proffer on a short notice that wouldn’t constitute a hand-me-down, and that seemed improper. He made a mental note to instruct Jarvis to order some better fitting ones, later.

There was a sarong tied around Loki’s loins, because, yeah, he couldn’t even put any pants on. Maybe it was just a piece of the guestroom’s bedsheets though. Tony made another note to send a fresh set of linens in.

With hair falling over his face and on to his shoulders completing the look, Loki reminded Tony of those Hare Krishna devotees one could see roaming the streets from time to time. Coming from a bleaker, warped version of the universe, where they wore industrial-strength manacles around their wrists and ankles instead of strings and beads and little bells.

It took Loki just a couple of seconds to take the room in, his eyes sliding over the equipment littering Tony’s workbench then lingering on the recess in the wall, separated from the rest of the area by a pane of reinforced glass. His expression hardened and he decisively took the few final steps that brought him to stand in front of Tony, while Tony focused on not cringing each time the chain dragged on the tiles and jarred on his nerves. Tearing the eyes away from the shackles and turning them up to god’s face didn’t do a lot to alleviate the sense of wrongness. Loki still looked like death not-so-much-warmed-over and the muzzle appeared even more abhorrent and out-of-place under the warm light of the workshop. Tony laughed when Thor first put it on his brother, it seemed hilarious, then, in a “ha, you got what you deserved for running your mouth like that” kind of way. It wasn’t funny now, years – fucking _years_ – down the line and the memory of that initial reaction burned Tony with embarrassment and guilt. 

Loki’s hands moved. He tipped his chin up and squared his spare shoulders. His bright, inhumanly green eyes were set on Tony, defiant and determined, yet he still hesitated before the last sign.

“It is your right as my new jailer,” Jarvis translated.

At that, Loki brought his hands up again and offered them to Tony, palms up, pushing the angry red lines on his slender wrists into full view.

Tony just stared at the god, surprise rendering him speechless for a second. That didn’t happen often.

Loki indicated the workbench with a slight nod. There was a set of cuffs lying there. Tony found them in the inventory of the borrowed jet and took them, because they used the same design as the ones on Loki’s left arm.

It took a moment for understanding to strike.

“Uhm, don’t you have enough hardware locked on you already, princess? I mean, if you’re starting a collection, we can work something out,” he quipped, half-heartedly, in an attempt to hide his consternation, “but for now I would rather focus on taking some off, if you don’t mind. Also, don’t you need your hands to talk?”

Loki’s eyes narrowed.

“I took those to find a way of taking them apart without keeping you cooped up in the workshop, waiting for me to work it out,” Tony explained, picking the cuffs off his desk, and nonchalantly tossing them into one of the boxes on the ground, out of Loki’s field of vision. Did the god really expect Tony to take back another scrap of his already severely limited freedom, just like that? His ability to communicate? And for what? Out of spite? To make his life that one bit more unbearable? If that’s so, the time in the dungeon messed him up more than Tony initially thought. “I’m not going to chain you up some more. Or throw you into another cell, for that matter,” he added, seeing the sideway glance Loki gave to the closed-off nook. If he anticipated this sort of treatment under Tony’s roof, the Hulk-proof panic room’s purpose couldn’t be more obvious in his eyes. “And that’s not going to change, unless you decide to do something extremely stupid.”

Loki didn’t seem convinced. Tony couldn’t hold it against him, not after seeing the handling he received from people who, on paper, constituted Tony’s allies. If he had no reasons to hate and distrust the human race before, those sick bastards definitely presented him with quite a pile on a silver platter.

“Which you wouldn’t if the stuff Romanoff has been telling me is true. You know, about how much of a reasonable guy you are?” Tony continued, flippantly waving the laser cutter he realized he was still holding. He put it down and grabbed his cup instead, taking a slow sip of coffee. It was cold and positively disgusting. The decision formed in his mind. “I know we didn’t start if off on the best foot and, if I’m being honest, the fault is not entirely mine. But I understand there were certain… uhm… external forces driving you to do things you might not have done otherwise. I’m willing to give you the benefit of the doubt for that.” Tony could be vague if he wanted to. _Take that, Mrs. Traynor from PR department._ “And – as much as I would like to learn more about the bigger baddy behind your attack – you are not here so we could interrogate or imprison you. As far as I’m concerned, you were never put on trial or convicted of anything and you’re my friend’s brother whom I offered help out of an unpleasant situation and hospitality to.”

Loki nodded in a slow, insecure motion then finally let his hands fall to his sides. His fingers clutched his clothes nervously. Tony didn’t expect to wipe his uncertainty with one quick speech, but it was a good start.

The god stared at Tony for a while longer, the suspicion melting into something more hopeful on his face. _[Does that mean I can leave?]_

“If that’s what you want? Sure. The doors are open and I’m not going to stop you,” Tony said without losing a beat and pointed somewhere above and to his right, in the general direction of the front entrance. He shouldn’t be surprised by the question. In Loki’s mind the situation must’ve seemed like trading one prison for another, even if a kinder one, up until now. “Although – and no offence, buddy – you still look like you went through a full cycle in an industrial grinder. Not to mention all the jewelry you can’t get off. Your fighting chance doesn’t look all that bright if you stumble upon the Hydra fucks again in this state. Or SHIELD. Or a regular police officer. Or even a concerned citizen, who finds your current… attire suspicious. And, believe me, it’s not like your disappearance went unnoticed. They are searching, desperate to get their hands on you again. And I bet my ass this time they’d make reaching you a lot harder. And it wasn’t that easy the first time around.”

Tony paused to gauge Loki’s reaction. The god flinched at the very suggestion of falling back into his former captors’ clutches but overall seemed to take the words as intended – a fair warning and not a veiled threat – which was another good sign and made Tony trust Romanoff’s assessment all the more.

“You can stay here and have a safe place to lay low and recoup and the help of my _extraordinary_ mind and resources to get you out of your bonds. But it’s just an offer and it is your right to decline.”

_[What’s the price?]_

Of course, there had to be one, right? “Well, a promise to not threat or attack my world again would be a great start,” he said lightly. “I wouldn’t say no to some insight about the dude who sent you here either. Just so we could be better prepared when he tries again, you know. Because I assume that’s what’s going to happen, right?”

_[You’re quick to believe I was not the only author of the attack.]_

“Come on, Hannibal. That part was obvious from the start. Let’s see. For one, you had barely any control of the so-called army of yours. Two, no respectable general would serve as a vanguard. In such a risky, idiotic manner, too. Three, Thor had no idea where you found the troops and how you convinced them to work for you, given they are mercenaries who work for the highest bidder and you had no resources to pay for the service. Ergo, someone had to supply it for you. Like I said, _obvious_. The part where you were not a willing participant is new, but it explains all your flinging around and questionable decisions all too well to disregard,” Tony said with a smile. “All in all, not a big leap of faith.”

Loki stared at him again, the undecided, suspicious look back on his face and Tony repressed the urge to sigh. The god deserved some indulgence for once and Tony would have to be entirely heartless to not grant him that small favor. He remembered his own uncertainty and his own unwillingness to trust anyone after Obediah’s betrayal, after the months in the cave has worn his faith in humanity thin. It took time to relearn it, before he allowed himself to rely on others again. It would be naïve _and_ ignorant to believe it was going to be different for Loki. If it could ever happen at all; Tony’s own traumatic experience suddenly seemed like a walk in the park compared to what the guy’s been through.

 _[I accept your offer,]_ Loki said finally, waited for the translation to air and politely bowed his head. There was a studied grace in the motion that only years of court life could produce. It wasn’t a sweeping curtsey one would give to someone of a higher stature, nor a small nod intended for one’s subject. It was a respectful acknowledgement meant for an equal. Well, at least by Earth’s standards, in Asgard it might mean a grave insult to Tony and his ancestors going five generations back just as well.

“Great,” he said and grinned at the god. If seeing it as a transaction was going to make the situation more bearable for Loki and make him more manageable in turn, he wasn’t going to argue.

He swiveled around to face the array of monitors. Face recognition triggered and the screens came to life. “Can we get on with some work then?”

Somewhere in his peripheral vision, Loki nodded.

Tony slid lower on his chair to reach for a revolving stool with his foot, pulling it closer to the table. He gestured at it, urging Loki to sit down. The god did, holding himself stiffly on the edge of the seat.

“I called for you because I think I figured out how to take those off without causing unnecessary damage,” he said, pointing at Loki’s wrist. “I would also like to take a closer look at the rest. Some scans as well, if that’s okay, so we could start working out how to get you out of it too. But let’s leave that for later and deal with one issue we have a solution for already.” Tony would prefer to start with the muzzle, as it was by far the most offending piece of Loki’s rig, but he needed way more info that he had before he started to tinker with it. It was clear from the events he witnessed and from Romanoff’s words that it was designed as a torture device and had _mechanisms_ in place to prevent tampering and it would be idiotic to fuck with it without knowing exactly what those were. Loki should be a bit savvier on the details. And removing the shackles from his wrist would be straight-forward enough and make the necessary conversation less tedious.

Tony turned one of the monitors so Loki could see it from where he was sitting, then tapped it, calling forth the project file. It showed an exploded view of the shackle. “SHIELD’s R&D has been cutting corners and I caught them red-handed. You see the small bit there? It’s made of a different material with a protective coating to cover it, for manufacturing ease. It will pop right off if we put just a teeny-weeny bit of heat to it. Like with that laser over there. Then the rivet is ripe for picking and… Do you even know what a laser is?”

_[I do. And I don’t require a step-by-step walkthrough.]_

“Too bad, Snow White. You’re still going to get it, because you are here with me and that’s how I roll,” Tony smirked and patted the tabletop between them. “Come on, I’m not going to bite your arm off.”

Loki rested his shackled hand on the bench in front of Tony with only a sliver of hesitation. _Now, for the hard part._ Tony swept the assorted junk away, swiveled around, retrieved a vise from the side table, aligned it in front of the god and activated the built-in electromagnet that locked it in place. He turned the handle and the vise opened, just wide enough for the shackles on Loki’s arm to fit between the claws.

Loki eyed the tool with open anxiety. It didn’t take a genius to realize why the idea dismayed him. Tony did not expect any other reaction.

“That’s the best way,” he reasoned. “We have to be precise if we don’t want to get your skin off along with the metal. It’s just for your safety. I’ll be as quick as possible.”

Loki shifted in his seat, rolled in closer, leaned in and placed his hand between the claws. A sharp exhale escaped his nostrils when Tony moved the pressure plates together, but he made no attempt to struggle or pull away. Tony got on with the work, retrieving the rest of required equipment and setting it up. “If you have any questions about the process, feel free to ask.”

The god glared at him, then down on his trapped arm, then up at him again and Tony felt like a moron. That also didn’t happen often. “Oh, right.” He grabbed a pencil and a notebook from Bruce’s desk and put the items in front of the god. “Can you write?” he asked, only to earn himself another indignant glare. “In English, I mean. Or Spanish? Or French? Or Simplified Chinese?”

Loki twirled the pencil around in his fingers, pulled the pad closer and wrote,

_YES._

Then, after a minute consideration, with proficiency surprising for someone who couldn’t even use their hands for a year, he added,

_是_

“In a showing off mood, are we?” Tony grinned.

_Not me.  
It is not my place to judge your mood._

Tony laughed. They’d get along just fine.

\---

Natasha lasted till about midday, before she gave up pretending to work. She’s been over the same paragraph the fourth time in the fifteen minutes and still had no idea about what was written in the report. She put the laptop down. There was a thick layer of dust on the coffee table. Whatever Banner was doing here, he didn’t spend his time on cleaning.

She wandered into the empty kitchen, made herself a toast and some coffee. Figuring out Stark’s fancy coffee machine took some fiddling, but – with Jarvis’ assistance – she managed to make an acceptable americana. Then, following AI’s instructions again, she prepared another cup for Tony, just like he preferred, which turned out to be a double shot of espresso topped with regular coffee, and more than a healthy daily dose of caffeine, in just one drink.

With that excuse in hand, she went down to the workshop.

No alarm has sounded, and one called for her help, so she was quite sure no murder sprees has taken place on either side, but other than that she wasn’t sure what to expect.

Well, definitely not _this_.

Loki’s hand was trapped in some sort of mechanism on Stark’s workbench, but he didn’t seem to mind, too absorbed in the sketch he was in the middle of drawing. One of the shackles on his arm was already dangling freely off his wrist and Stark was working on the other.

“How do you deal with resonance dampening?” Stark asked and Loki pointed at something on the paper.

She came closer and Loki cranked his neck to face to her. “Do not stop on my behalf,” she said. “I just brough some coffee.”

Loki nodded and returned to his sketch, adding a small detail and a description in a neat cursive.

She put the coffee down.

“Hey! I need those!” Stark protested and moved the cup away from the papers.

“Hey, Bruce!” she called and Banner waved his hand at her without looking away from his monitor. She sat down and watched. She studied the page Loki was working on. It was a technical drawing of something that might be a weird bridge, but with enough added flair to give it an artistic vibe, like the old architectural sketches in history books. It didn’t surprise her in the slightest that Loki could draw. Of course he could.

Stark adjusted some knob on the device in his hand, pressed it into the hinge of the shackle and twisted it with a grunt. “Here we go!” he exclaimed, and pulled the rod free.

Loki put down the pencil and turned his scrutiny to what Stark was doing. Stark released the claws, grabbed Loki’s wrist, and pushed a file between the teeth of the hinge, then pried it apart, just wide enough for Loki to slip his hand out. He twisted his wrist, testing the new range of movement, then dragged his fingers down his forearm. The shackles left bloody imprints on his skin. He blinked and looked up at the man before him.

_[Thank you, Stark.]_

“It wasn’t that bad, was it?”

Loki shook his head.

“Bruce, can you give us a hand here?”

Banner did, grabbing a bottle of liquid from his bag and some gauze.

“Can I see?” he asked, sitting next to Loki.

Loki held his hand out. Bruce poured the liquid on the damaged skin and proceeded to wipe it off. Loki’s nose wrinkled and his breath quickened. He closed his eyes and the fingers of his other hand twisted into his clothes.

“I know it stings, but it’s just a disinfectant. It has some numbing properties, so it should make it better,” Banner said. “I’m almost done.” It didn’t seem to have an effect.

Tony’s brow furrowed. “Jarvis, can you get us some fresh air?”

“Of course, sir,” the AI responded. There was a low rumble and a perceptible rush of air as the handling unit for the workshop turned to the highest gear.

Loki took in a deep breath and gave Stark a small nod. Bruce’s gaze jumped between the men, confused, but Stark waved his hand at him. He got up and skulked back to his desk.

“You want to rest a moment before we proceed?” Stark asked.

_[No, I’m fine.]_

“Okay then.” Stark grabbed a device from his desk, some sort of scanner. “I’d like to take a closer look at the muzzle, if that’s okay.”

Loki nodded, but there was some hesitance in the movement.

“Natasha told me it hurts you if someone touches it.”

_[Yes.]_

Stark sighed. “Do you know it will be the same with a scan? It emits y-rays.”

Loki’s face was still undecided.

“It’s… uhm, basically electromagnetic radiation.”

Loki nodded, understanding. _[We can try.]_

“You sure?”

_[Yes.]_

“That wasn’t too convincing.”

Loki hesitated.

“Come on, it’s magical stuff and I have no idea how it works. If there’s something important I should know, you have to tell me, because there’s no way for me to figure it out otherwise. I might hurt you while trying to help. I don’t want to do that. I don’t want to torment you, I don’t want to use it against you. I want to take that damned thing off your mug as soon as possible and I’ll appreciate any input you can give me.”

Loki stared at the man for a moment and there was that familiar expression of struggle on his face. He was trying to decide whether he could trust Stark or not. Coming upon a decision, he took a breath and his hands moved. _[The spell is a form of energy with a mind on its own. It’s stored in the metal itself. In the…]_ He paused, and his brow furrowed, _[spaces between the atoms. It can affect the state of the material itself and transmit signals to my brain, telling it to perceive pain. It uses my life force as fuel. It can read my intentions, which means it reads my mind state. It can sense touch and differentiate between me and others. It can sense energy of other spells if they are used on me, or my own attempts to reach for my powers, whether conscious or involuntary. The reaction depends on the intensity of the source, the stronger the magic, the more severe it is.]_

Stark scratched his beard. “So, it is a form of quantum energy…”

_[Yes, in a sense.]_

“Okay, I can work with that, I think. How does it scale? The reaction part, I mean.”

 _[It starts with physical changes of the metal. It heats up or changes shape, depending on my particular offence against it, sometimes both. Then it starts affecting my pain receptors and it varies from mild discomfort to…]_ Loki paused.

“Yeah, I get the idea.”

 _[Then there’s the spell on…]_ he gestured at his feet. _[It’s a protection spell that will react each time my body is physically damaged and it will trigger the magic of the gag in turn. It’s no longer as strong as it was when it was cast, so it’s harder to get it to activate, but it’s still there and the last time it happened it was severe enough to knock me out.]_

There was a pause.

“Where does it stop?” asked Bruce from his corner, piercing the silence, and flustered, when every set of eyes in the room dashed to him. He compulsively tapped his pen against the desk. “I mean, how far would the spell go if you kept on triggering it? Would it kill you?”

 _[No.]_ Loki answered and there was an absolute surety in the gesture.

“How do you know?”

_[I tried. But each time I lost consciousness first. It is drawing from my life energy, and once it has nothing to consume, it goes dormant again.]_

Natasha gasped. Tony eyed her weirdly then all color drained from his face when Jarvis’ translation aired.

 _[Same thing happens when the spell is triggered by magic. I’d just faint and it would stop. I assume it can be triggered again even then, and that would eventually kill me, but I can’t do it myself. Even powerful magic, like the one Natasha used to bring me back to life only made me black out,]_ Loki carried on. He was looking at Tony, completely unaware of her meaningful stare. _[Then the spell stopped firing.]_

She groaned when Jarvis provided the translation.

“Uhm, what?” Tony mumbled and Bruce adjusted his glasses, like it was just some bug in reality that needed correction.

Loki’s eyes dashed from Tony, to Bruce and then, finally, to Natasha, and only then he realized his misstep. _[I had no idea it was supposed to be a secret.]_

Everyone was looking at her now. “Okay, fine,” she grunted, threw up her hand and pulled forth her core. A ball of light floated an inch above her palm.

“Okay,” Tony muttered, “so, you’re a wizard now. Good to know.”

Loki’s hands shot up, but she was quicker. “Loki would like you to know that it’s a ‘mage’, not a ‘wizard’. But yeah, I suppose I am. Kind of. Am I?” She turned to Loki and he nodded. “Yeah, it looks like I am.”

“Do that again,” Tony demanded, aiming the scanner at her.

“Tony, there will be time for that,” Bruce interjected, before the engineer got completely carried away. “We have more important things to solve right now.”

“I’m solving it! If we can read the energy signature magic is giving off, we can isolate it and find a way to block it. Without that, the thing is just a piece of metal.”

Loki clapped his hands to get Stark’s attention. _[It won’t work. Each spell has its own unique signature, because each energy transformation is different. You’ll have to trigger it to get its reading.]_

“Nah, no way, we are not doing it.”

_[I can take it.]_

“We. Are. Not. Doing. It. I’ve seen it happen once and it’s one time more than I wish I had to. I’ll go through the data we borrowed from SHIELD and the stuff Jarvis managed to grab from Sokovia, they ought to have recorded some of it.”

Loki let out a sigh and hung his head.

“I can still do a scan and check other angles. If mild electromagnetic field could trigger it, you’d have it fire all the time with the armor on, yet it was fine.”

_[Okay.]_

Stark aimed the device at Loki. “Just tell us if anything happens, okay? No need to play it tough.”

Loki didn’t move.

“I won’t start until you promise,” Stark said and crossed his arms.

 _[I will tell you to stop if something happens,]_ Loki showed finally, without looking up and the expression on his face was that of an utter defeat.

She came closer and put her hand on his arm. His breath hitched, but he didn’t jerk away. “We just don’t want you to get hurt again,” she whispered. “There’s no shame in avoiding harm.”

Loki nodded, unconvinced.

“Can we?” Stark asked and waved his scanner.

Loki tipped his chin up and closed his eyes, his hands clasped in his lap.

Stark circled around, keeping the device at a safe distance. It beeped a few times, showed some graphs and numbers on the small display, then – when Stark completed the full circle around Loki’s head – it blinked green.

“Okay, the model should be ready, let’s see what we have here…” he clapped down on his chair in front of his monitors and the smile wiped out of his face. “Motherfuckers!”

Natasha couldn’t see the display from where she was standing so she moved to look. And immediately regretted it.

The monitor showed a full three dimensional model of the device with a background of grayed out representation of Loki’s physique. The thick, multilayered panel at the front, the band running around the neck, and two metal plates extending inside and forcing his jaw to stay open, one covering the roof of the mouth completely, the other pressing down the tongue and running deep into Loki’s throat, up until his larynx. She blinked, trying to warp her head around it. “Was it… always like this?” she asked numbly.

_[Yes.]_

Bruce stumbled to his feet. “I… I need a moment,” he said, then walked into the niche in the wall, closed the glass panel and lay down on the cot, his fingers pressing down his eyelids.

Loki looked up at her, his forehead wrinkled in confusion. He truly didn’t understand why they found it so appalling. It was how Asgard did it all the time, wasn’t it? As if forcing him into silence and hunger wasn’t enough…

Stark ran his hands through his hair. “Okay,” he said, more to himself than to anybody else. “Okay,” he repeated. His fingers curled and uncurled a couple of times. Natasha knew the feeling. Stark wanted to do something. To _fix_ this. To help. But there was nothing he could do.

“Okay,” he said, one last time, and got out of his seat. “Let’s scan the shackles now. That should be easier to stomach.”

It wasn’t.

\---

Banner emerged half an hour later. He managed to calm himself down, so at least they didn’t have to deal with the Hulk.

Loki sat on top of the workbench, his arms around his knees, while Stark ran another analysis, with some cables connected to the metal of the shackle. At that point they knew the closing mechanism was basically a simple latchlock, hidden inside, and inaccessible because of the properties of the alloy. Stark refused to give up though.

“I can’t believe they didn’t leave themselves an option to take it off somehow,” he said, at least for the third time since he started.

Natasha bit her tongue. There was no point in telling Stark that, of course, there was an option, as long as one didn’t care about the wellbeing of the wearer.

“How long will it take?” Bruce asked. “It’s well past due time for another dose of the formula. And the painkillers probably stopped working a while ago…”

Loki let out a huff of air, but didn’t protest. He was tired and it showed.

“Bruce’s right, let’s not push it,” Natasha said. “You have tons of data to sift through already. We can pick up where we left off tomorrow.”

“Yeah, yeah, you’re right,” Stark muttered and started unhooking the electrodes.

Loki scrambled down from the table then stopped, his eyes on notebook he used before. _[May I… keep it?]_ he asked, and brushed his fingers over the blank page.

“Sure,” Stark said, without really looking at what exactly he meant. 

_[Thank you,]_ Loki said, picked the notebook and the pencil and clutched it in his arms.

“Come on,” Bruce urged.

Loki looked at her with question in his eyes.

“I’ll join you later,” she said. “I still have some things to finish here, okay?”

His shoulders slumped, but he nodded and followed Bruce up the stairs, his arms still hugging the notebook protectively, like it was the most precious thing in the whole world. It was years since he was allowed to… own anything, she realized.

“Fuck me,” Stark cursed the moment the door closed. He hid his face in his hands and stayed like that for a while, then looked back at her. “How can you be so calm about it?”

“I’m not,” she said. “It’s just…” She shook her head. “Every time you think Asgard and the way they treat Loki couldn’t be any worse, it somehow turns out it can.”

“Why didn’t they come looking for him?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe the bridge is still broken. Maybe they just don’t care.”

Stark shook his head in disbelief.

“You think it’s possible? The thing you said, about blocking the magic?”

“I have no idea,” he admitted, “but I’m going to find out.”


	49. Dewdrops

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Loki wins golden medals in mental gymnastics and jumping to conclusions.

_The doors are open and I’m not going to stop you._

Loki twisted and turned Stark’s words in his head, trying to find the hidden meaning, the voiding clause, the catch in them, but there seemed to be none. It was either a truth, or a lie, not a cleverly worded trap.

There was one quick way to check. He could call the bluff right here and now.

His hand hovered over the window latch again and his fingertips brushed the bright, smooth metal lightly, before he forced the offending appendage away and back into his lap. As much as he could question the sincerity of Stark’s assertions about his freedom, the rest of the mortal’s words was self-evident.

No matter what the court chatter might’ve said, Loki was never vain. He was too keenly aware of his own flaws for that. Even before discovering the falsehood of his skin and the lie behind his parentage, he treated his body as a tool. One he kept as polished and sharp as he could, knowing the value of immaculate presentation and strength both. It wasn’t sharp anymore. Starting with his time in the Void and in the Other’s tender care, the last months – years – has worn him thin, wrung him dry, flayed skin from his flesh, ground his bones and spat him out, raw, brittle, broken, and useless. The mortal saw and spoke the truth, Loki had no chance to stand against those who wished him harm, he engrieved the whole realm with his actions and now only his former enemies’ mercy stood between him and more torment.

Loki was aware that Stark’s deal was a way to placate him, make him more manageable and cooperative without a need for coercion. Yet it was still unthinkably generous, and Loki would be a fool if he invalidated his end just by bending to inane cravings. There were many simple comforts he yearned for and could no longer have; this was just another one on a long list. He didn’t need it. There was little he truly needed that he couldn’t go without anymore.

The wall of the forest looked as it was set ablaze by the setting sun; the yellows and oranges turned even more intense and the dark, lush lawn was calling him tantalizingly. The grass hasn’t been cut in some time – unlikely treatment in well-kept mortal dwellings – and Loki wondered how it would feel to walk on it. His toes curled involuntarily and, just for a heartbeat, the shaggy carpet transformed to thin, sharp blades of grass, cool from the dew that settled on the ground.

Despite his best efforts, his hand shot up once more.

How would the air taste like? Would it be anything like the evening air in Asgard, rich with salty moisture rising from the bay and the thick, flowery scent drifting from the royal gardens? Or something completely different? Midgard was so varied with its everchanging seasons and fickle weather. There always was something new to experience, the uncertainty of how each day might look like making it exciting and transient both, compared to the ever-unchanging surety of his… of Asgard.

He put his hand down again. Stark’s offer was clean-cut and straight to the point; Loki gets a chance to heal and a place to hide as long as he stays put. And he had no other option but to accept. Not if he wanted to keep away from that dreary cell, or one just like it. So, he has to stay, at least until he recovers enough of his strength to push his plans into motion. Enough of his strength to even think of a plan.

It was harder now, in a way. The world inside the dungeon was dark and hopeless, but it was simple. To have a prospective of _freedom_ dangled just in front of his nose – so close, yet still as far out of his reach as before – felt almost unbearable.

He could bear it. It was not a choice, not truly. He could take it and perhaps one day he could prove he followed Stark’s simple rule, earning himself a shot at walking away, free.

His hand twitched in his lap and he forced it down.

Well, there were two further stipulations, one that made him want to laugh hysterically and one that sent shivers of dread down his spine.

Not attacking Midgard again was something Stark should expect without say. Not only Loki owed him – and Natasha – an unpayable debt, was no longer in any position to do so nor (ever) had any quantifiable interest in it, but the rule would also be too easy to enforce now, given Loki’s hypothetical lack of accord. Across the multitude of Stark’s estates there must be no shortage of cages Loki could be locked into to never see the light of day again, if he ever steps out of line. And if Stark’s high moral standards prevented him from imprisoning Loki by his own means, SHIELD would welcome him back with open arms. So, no, his opinion on the subject wouldn’t change anytime soon.

The other condition was the one that made Loki look towards the oncoming days with trepidation. He had little qualms with telling the mortal or any of his companions everything he knew about the Mad Titan, it was only to his best interest to share every detail if it could potentially aid the defeat of their common enemy, even if that meant revealing all the shameful circumstances of his submission. There wasn’t much sense of shame left in him anyway.

The problem was that his knowledge was not only scarcer than he’d wish but also over two years outdated.

No, not two years. There was no point in using Æsir time measurements. He wasn’t one and he was on Midgard now. And “one and a half” sounded marginally better than “more than two”. It might be what softens the blow when Stark finally asks the important question and Loki tells him, truthfully, that he doesn’t have the faintest idea what the Mad Titan might be up to nowadays. He was never privy to his plans; he knew only what he needed to know to be able to retrieve the Tesseract and deliver it to his…

Loki gritted his teeth against the metal to stop himself from following the line of thoughts. He was no one’s servant.

 _Then why do you feel as trapped and helpless as you did back then_? _How is it any different?_ the relentless voice in his head asked and Loki couldn’t answer with anything other than trite platitudes. _I’m not in as much pain. No one demands me to kill and destroy in their name._

_I can see the sky._

His hand flew towards the latch yet again and he forced it back down, where it belonged, then wrapped his fingers around his left wrist, to give them an illusion of a task. He was delighted to be rid of the constant pressure of the shackles and their clamoring weight, but his treacherous brain couldn’t help tripping on the erroneous _nakedness_ every time a rush of air or cloth or even his own fingers grazed the bare skin where the metal used to sit for so long.

Would he miss the damned gag the same way, were he ever free from its burden?

The spell sent a sharp warning down his throat at the notion, a quick reminder that Odin made sure it would never happen. Not until Thor finds him and drags him back to Asgard to finally face the outstanding justice. Perhaps not even then. It was too convenient to keep him silent, unable to voice excuses or objections to Odin’s sentence, whether it was to be a leniency of a quick death or a condemnation to an eternity of darkness.

But perhaps…

Loki’s hands curled into fists, his fingernails digging into his palms until they drew blood, until pain suppressed the urge to claw the metal off in a futile attempt get free from it.

Even that didn’t extinguish the small spark of hope. The same that took residence in his chest in the cell and only grew brighter after Stark’s vehement assertion he would keep on working on removing Loki’s bonds. Stark was but a mortal, he couldn’t stand against Odin’s magic and no amount of misguided self-confidence would change that. Even if simple logic could not convince Loki, the collective dismayed reaction to the scan should be enough of a hint. No, the gag was to stay.

But the leg irons were purely a mortal creation, so perhaps…

He shifted, pulling his knees closer to his chest and settling closer to the bed behind his back, just to feel the tug of the fetters again. He was still not used to how the shackles weighted him down or to the graceless hobble of his steps when he avoided putting too much pressure on the still raw welts on his ankles. The way the manacles always felt slightly warmer than his skin was familiar at least. So was the ever-present awareness of the dormant spell, burning at the back of his skull. He couldn’t sense the magic itself, but the memory was enough to deter him from triggering it again.

He touched the shackle precariously, his fingers tracing its outer diameter for the first time. He didn’t want to risk it earlier, lest the curse shared any similarities with Odin’s magic and could be set off with a slightest touch with a wrong intent behind it. But by now he knew that neither thought nor indirect interference were able to rouse it and Stark’s careless probing proved touching wouldn’t do it either, leaving only brute force attempts and tampering with the spell itself as potential ways to activate it, other than it’s original intent. Perhaps not even that. Perhaps, as long as Loki doesn’t get hurt, it would never bother him again.

Yes, as if that worked ever before…

It was a very simple magic. It was rather obvious, in hindsight. Weaving intricacies into a spell required concentration, a high level of skill, and an impeccable control of one’s powers – and Loki should’ve known better than expect either from a scared child working under duress. The magic was crude and lacked finesse.

Still effective enough. Just like the rest of his captors’ methods.

The surface of the shackle felt smoother than he anticipated, but not completely seamless either. There were hairline cracks running from one edge to the other, on both sides, adding credibility to Stark’s claims that there yet might be a way to open it.

No, it was unreasonable to hold onto a false hope. _You won’t be able to stall for long enough_. Stark will soon know how lackluster the knowledge Loki has to offer about the Mad Titan is. And what interest would the man have in further wasting his time and resources on Loki? Just freeing him from his prison and allowing him a safe corner to curl into and lick his wounds was a kindness Loki did nothing to deserve and could do little to repay. There was no praise nor fame for Stark to be earned from helping a Jötunn changeling, not from his own kin nor, or – even more so – from the people of Asgard. In the eyes of mortals, he was but a criminal suffering a rightful punishment for the atrocities he committed against their realm. And, in Æsir eyes, there was no fate too cruel for the likes of Loki, considering his actions and true nature alike.

Stark had to act directly against his superiors and Midgardian laws just to get Loki where he was. Natasha’s gift of persuasion must’ve played no small role, but in the end Stark did so from his own good will and that must run out, sooner or later. Loki was worthless as a source of information and, without his magic, he couldn’t even be considered a useful ally, even assuming Stark would allow such alliance to happen despite plain distrust. No, there was nothing the mortal or his combatants could gain from relieving Loki of the burden of his bonds and leaving him restrained like he was only made him all that easier to control.

Avoiding Stark’s inquiry – as tempting as it could sound – wasn’t feasible in the long run. Natasha’s assessment was on point, the man was smart, could connect facts at an alarming rate and knew exactly what questions to ask to narrow the field and get to the bottom of any subject he wanted explored. Once upon a time, Loki would find such traits highly entertaining in a conversation partner, but, in this situation, it only fueled his insecurity. The moment the proper interrogation starts there will be little Loki could do to escape his scrutiny without appearing unforthcoming or downright uncooperative and that wasn’t something that would get him into human’s good graces.

So far, Stark was only testing the waters. This morning he has bombarded Loki with a volley of questions and not a single query has even nudged the big, important one. No, he asked about simple, fundamental things. About Asgard, about the Nine, about rules of space travel, about magic, about the All-Tongue and how it worked. Loki was more than eager to answer to the best of his comprehension, hoping that keeping the mortal interested would divert his attention for a little while longer. And, if Loki was to be honest with himself, just for the distraction it offered to his buzzing thoughts as well, even if he couldn’t quite keep the anxiety at being the centerpiece of attention from brewing at the back of his mind. His old self enjoyed those moments tremendously, particularly since – more often than not – it meant stealing the publicity from Thor for a brief while, but it was just another piece of himself he could no longer recognize.

Sure, Loki could extrapolate and divulge in speculations, upsell his usefulness to squirm his way out. Lie, too; he could still do that after all, even without his voice, and his promise to Natasha didn’t extend to Stark. But that would be just that. A way out, but not forward. Lies rarely earned him any favor, no matter how beautiful picture he painted. And Loki didn’t need more enemies, nor did he need more animosity than he already garnered. Not to mention that any action based on wrong presumptions could further diminish the already quite impossible chances of ever defeating the Mad Titan. Midgardians needed all the headway they could get, as they couldn’t count on Asgard’s – and thus the rest of the Nine’s – assistance when they are attacked again. And Stark’s assumption was on point, they will be. Thanos will try to reach for whatever it was that he was trying to find on Midgard again, as soon as he finds a way to move his armies without the Tesseract. He will want his scepter back, too, it holds too much power to be left unclaimed. And it was still on Earth, perhaps still in his captors’ hands, because Loki got no chance to tell Thor it should be taken to Asgard along with the cube. Not that it mattered, Thor would read it as an attempt to meddle and disregard the plea anyway.

Well, that was one thing Loki could tell the mortal about. It was at least a valid, potentially helpful information, although it probably wouldn’t buy him much time, even if humans haven’t already figured that out on their own.

Loki sighed. He was the one to bring the scepter to Midgard in the first place and – once its owner comes to collect it – it would be just another violation to add to the long list of his offences.

A small bird landed on the porch, disturbing the procession of his thoughts. Fascinated, Loki crooked his head and observed his little visitor. Its feathers were light gray, almost white, bare two splotches of black on the top of the head and under the beak. Dark, beady eye regarded Loki – or maybe just its own reflection on the glass – for a few heartbeats, then it scooted over to worry at a bunch of dried berries hanging from a dead pot plant. The wings flapped and the bird flew away, proudly carrying its catch – a single red berry – in its beak.

Loki followed the path it circled on the sky until he could no longer make it out, pressure building up in his chest and behind his eyes. His breath caught and his throat tightened around the metal. The walls moved closer, and he gasped for air, unable to fill his lungs, like all the oxygen was pumped out of the room, leaving him to gulp like a fish out of water.

He staggered to his feet and swayed, the world wavered and tilted at an angle. He grabbed the edge of the mattress to steady himself, his lungs burning, corners of his vision growing dark and blurry.

His shaking hand reached for the latch and he turned it, then he curled his fingers around the handle to slide…

There was a bang and the room door flung open behind him, knocking him out of the stupor. He pulled the trespassing hand away, took a quick step back from the window and twisted fingers into clothes, panting.

Was Stark here only to reprimand him or to try to take him down to the cell for breaking the rules already? Would putting up a fight make it better or worse?

“You were supposed to be in bed, space boy.” Loki spun around. It was Natasha. The wave of relief almost made him stumble again.

She studied him for a moment then shook her head with a disappointed grunt, but it was clear she wasn’t truly annoyed. “I brought you something,” she said. She was carrying a white box in one hand and balancing a wooden tray with three bottles of differently colored liquids in the other. “Hell, it smells like hospital in here.”

She tossed the box onto the bed, placed the tray on the side table, then went to the window and slid it open, as far as it would go, until the whole pane disappeared behind the curtain. “Ahh, that’s better.”

The air that rushed in smelled of decaying leaves and recent rain and the hint of chill in it carried a promise of frost in the morning and Loki just stood there, stunned.

The smile on Natasha’s lips slowly died down. “Something’s wrong?”

Loki shook his head, unable to will his hands to move.

“Don’t bullshit me. Do I need to ask Jarvis to play me a recording?”

He shook his head again. _[I got distracted,]_ he managed. _[I’m fine, now.]_

She still watched him closely, her eyebrows knit with worry. “Want to go for a stroll?”

Did she not understand the rules of the deal he struck with Stark? _[I’m not supposed to leave.]_

She sighed. “Tony asked you not to wander _off_ _the_ _property,_ not to stay inside your room all the time. He owns like five hundred acres of land around the house and it’s all secured with anti-drone turrets, motion sensors and signal scramblers. I know, I checked. Twice. The joys of being a billionaire, I guess,” she said with a small chuckle. “Come on, no one’ll see us.”

Loki had trouble processing her words. He could go outside. Stand on the grass under an open sky. _Breathe_. He stayed, frozen in place, the perspective suddenly too overwhelming.

She stepped outside and extended an inviting hand. “I know you’re still tired, but a small walk will help you sleep better. So, what do you say? Just a few steps? Onto the porch, at least?”

He took one tentative step forward, then another, over the threshold. Boards creaked softly under his weight and the chain rattled on the uneven, weathered wood. He took her hand and she pulled him along, away from the safe confines of Stark’s guestroom, down the four stone steps and onto the yard.

The soft, soggy mulch squelched under his feet and grass tickled his ankles and his legs buckled; he stumbled and collapsed to his knees; his hands splayed in front of him. He sat down on his haunches.

The grass was still wet from rain. His hands were trembling slightly when he folded them in his lap.

Tears came stinging again and he fought them; he couldn’t show vulnerability, he couldn’t let his captors see how weak and broken he was for there would be no mercy…

Natasha’s hand found its way onto his shoulder and rested at the nape of his neck, its comforting weight and warmth anchoring him, bringing his spiraling mind back to the ground safely.

He cocked up his head to look at her, at the sad smile pulling the corners of her mouth up, at the small, fretted wrinkle on her forehead, into her watchful eyes meeting his gaze, like she could see all the way through his false skin and into his mind. Like always, no matter how much he hurt her or how low he fell, defeated by the invisible hand of Odin’s justice, his memories or his own traitorous body, there was no contempt nor scorn in them. Only the inexplicable, warm glow of acceptance.

Her fingers kneaded a lump of tense muscle on his shoulder. Loki allowed himself to relax, lean into the slow, soothing motion, little by little.

“It’s okay,” she said, her voice suddenly rough and uneven, “you’re safe here. You’re safe with me.”

 _I know_ , Loki wanted to answer, but only furled his fingers without moving his hand from his lap. A tear rolled down his cheek. His eyelids fluttered close. More tears followed. He was not safe, he would never be, but it was a small lie he was willing to believe, if just for this brief moment.

\---

Tony spent ten minutes on staring at his own reflection in the darkened monitor, then another fifteen as fruitlessly searching for Bruce’s hidden box of inappropriate wonders that he sincerely hoped would include Xanax. Or at least some pot.

Then he got to work.

He went through the data Jarvis gathered during their excursion in Sokovia and quickly realized that, despite the quantity, there was not many things of use here. Data recovery wasn’t the main objective, so what he got was basically files that Jarvis cached on the drive while accessing the systems looking for Loki. There was practically no research data, just hours upon hours of surveillance recordings Tony wanted to avoid looking at as long as he could.

“Jarvis, why didn’t we grab all the files concerning Loki from Sokovia?” he asked idly, while browsing through the folders.

“We did, sir.”

That put Tony on a pause. “But there’s just a bunch of blood tests, nothing more. No other research reports.” Bruce already went through the results and posited they were experimenting to optimize the formula with the lowest amount of nutrition that would still keep Loki alive, without giving him any chance to recover.

It was a miracle they didn’t get a Hulk episode just out of that.

“There was nothing more, sir. If they conveyed any other research, none of it was stored locally.”

It might mean one of two things and Tony couldn’t decide which one was more disturbing in the long run: either the research was conveyed by yet some other party and they’d never have any idea where and when it might pop up or they just… didn’t. They just locked Loki in a hole for a year and tortured him because it was a good sport.

“Is there anything in the video files you think I should watch?” he asked and really hoped the answer would be a solid ‘no’.

No such luck.

“There’s a video that shows an experiment they conveyed. There’s no report on it anywhere in the files, but some results are visible on the monitors in the frame.”

“What kind of experiment?”

“I’m not exactly sure, sir.”

Tony let out an exasperated breath. “Bring it on, Jay.”

It was a high-quality recording, and it showed the scene in an excruciating detail; an amalgam of two camera angles, one on each corner of the cell, the same he found Loki in. The basic setup was also familiar: the table in the center of the cell, with Loki strapped down to it. But there were more people around, and some equipment, something that looked like an EEG machine on one side, with contact pads on Loki’s forehead and temples, and a portable power supply on the other, with wires running to the electrodes on Loki’s uncovered chest. The EEG display was visible in the frame.

Two men and a woman in white lab coats swarmed around the cell. Tony refused to call them ‘scientists’, even inside his own head, there was nothing scientific about what they were doing.

Goon one turned on the current. Loki’s spine arched and he tossed his head back, his body twisted in convulsion. Tony skipped ahead. Once, then twice, then just moved the bar two minutes ahead and only then the circuit has been turned off.

 _I’ll have to watch it again_ , Tony thought with dismay. He wasn’t paying attention to the display.

Goon two approached Loki and tried placing the cuff of a blood pressure monitor on his arm, but couldn’t quite get it done with Loki’s hand trapped flat on the table. He disappeared out of the frame and showed up on the other feed, fiddling with the control panel, then returned and removed the metal band. The moment it was off, Loki’s hand flew up, clocking the goon in the chin. Tony inwardly congratulated him on the aim and spatial awareness – he still had the blindfold on. Goon two staggered and goon one turned the current back on.

Tony skipped forward again.

The goon lady approached Loki and jabbed something that looked a lot like an icepick between the plates of the gag.

Tony understood what they were trying to do. They were comparing Loki’s brain states, depending on the source of pain. “Jarvis, cut the EEG results from both runs and overlay them on one another.”

Jarvis did and Tony stared at the diagrams. They were virtually the same. It meant that the spell just emulated the physical sensation and sent the signals directly to the parietal lobe, skipping the rest of the nervous system. Loki basically told them that already and Tony – completely baselessly – assumed it was a mental shortcut.

This he could use. If he finds the right frequency it transmits on, it could be blocked. The spell would still trigger, but Loki wouldn’t feel it. It wasn’t a complete solution, but it was a progress.

“Jay, bring on the results from SHIELD and compare the ranges.”

“Already on it, sir.”

“Is the CNC bay free?”

“Mr. Banner has a queued project but didn’t progress with it since you’ve arrived.”

“Stash it and clean the chamber. And tell Bruce to come down, I’m going to need his input.”

\---

They stayed out on the porch. Natasha brought a jacket, a blanket and a chair to sit on. Loki stayed on the wooden floor. He could see more of the sky that way. The sun has set and the clouds cleared completely, leaving them with a full view of the stars.

Loki used to thing the Midgardian night sky looked unimpressive. There were always too many lights around and the sky wasn’t black, just faded gray.

Not here.

“Did you know you have a star named after you? And an island?”

Loki tore his eyes from the sky and looked up at her.

“That reminds me,” she said and untangled herself from the blanket. “I have _stuff_ for you.”

She went inside and brought the tray and the box.

_[What is it?]_

She smiled. “And I thought I’m the impatient one. Those here are juices that Banner procured from some fruits I cannot even name. Super healthy and should go well into an empty stomach, so he wanted me to encourage you to drink it. I’m not going to, but I will still leave it, so try it, if you want. Orange is the best one if you ask me. Not actually made of oranges though.”

She put the tray on the floor by the door. “And here’s a gift. I’d say from me, but Stark paid for it, so it’s technically from him. Well, I don’t think he even had to pay, his company makes those, he probably has a whole vault full of them somewhere. One of those that cartoon characters swim in.”

Loki took the box from her hands and nodded politely, although – as much as he understood the words – they refused to come together into a coherent whole.

“Come on, open it.”

He turned the box around, but there was no indication of what it might contain, only a logo, the same he was forced to wear on his chest, like a mark of ownership.

“That’s the nice thing with minimal packaging these days,” she joked. “It keeps you guessing.”

He peeled the wrap and took the lid off then stared at the device inside.

“It’s a mobile phone.”

Loki understood the concept and recognized the function right away, but it didn’t explain why Natasha wanted him to have it. _[Aren’t they used to… talk to one another?]_

She scoffed. “It’s like one of a thousand ways you can use it. You can text, check internet, watch videos…” She paused, noticing his confused glare. “I’ll show you, okay?”

_[Why are you giving it to me?]_

“I need to go away for a while. We can exchange messages or use video chat while I’m gone and you feel like you want to… talk to me, or something. I also have something for you to watch.”

_[Where are you going?]_

“Back to Europe. Stark dug up some lead on some other base in the archives and I’m going to check it out. He suspects that’s where they are keeping the scepter and that might be crucial.”

_[Who?]_

“Hydra fucks, who else?”

_[Hydra?]_

“Uhm, the people who… held you?”

_[Wasn’t that SHIELD?]_

\---

A plate flew through the kitchen and smashed on the pillar.

“Can you stop destroying my stuff?” Stark said, very unenthusiastically, and sat down at the kitchen table.

“I need to vent. I find it more palatable than punching people.”

“Is it something in particular or just… this?” he made a broad gesture with his hands.

“Loki was convinced, up until maybe fifteen minutes ago, that what happened to him was a completely lawful procedure carried out by the US government. Fury came to see him to gloat just before they took him from Ohio, so he just assumed it was within his right to…” She stopped and rubbed her face in exasperation.

“You know what? Give me one of those plates.”


	50. Concrete jungle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which things move, sometimes in multiple directions at once.

They cornered him in the library, when he skulked out of his room to explore. It might have been his fault, he picked a book from the shelf just to page it through and then got too absorbed to notice the passage of time, despite the peculiarity of the plot.

They all sat down on the floor, like he was sitting, despite no shortage of armchairs and fluffy pouffes in the room and Loki just knew something wasn’t right.

“Okay, Midnight Express, this is an intervention,” Stark said and clapped his hands on his thighs. “Natasha brought to my attention that you might have some… misconceptions about what we are all trying to do here.”

_[Is that what I’ve heard last night?]_

Natasha snorted. Stark glowered at her. “What? It was funny. The deal was for _you_ to not turn this into a joke, which you’ve already ruined with that idiotic nickname. You’re running out of pop culture references or what?”

Stark let out an annoyed sigh, then locked his eyes on Loki, not without effort. Stark’s gaze usually just skittled away from Loki’s face as quickly as possible. Loki couldn’t blame him, the gag was a horrid device and he himself avoided his own reflection in the mirror just as fervently. “What happened to you was not justice. It wasn’t law, just a bunch of sadistic fucks with illusions of grandeur.”

_[Yes, Stark, I understood that the first time Natasha told me.]_

“I know, I’m saying that because I have a point and I want to make it very clear.” Stark paused and cleared his throat. “We are not acting on Fury’s orders, or anyone else’s. You’re not a prisoner here. Or a hostage. You’re here so we could help you.”

Loki nodded.

He’s heard that before. Not only from Stark, from Odin as well. There were always conditions. Rules. Caveats. Things he could be punished for, sometimes without even knowing the reason. Stark called him free, yet made his help conditional to Loki’s obedience, so, as long as Loki was at his mercy, the human could withdraw any of his graces. The way it was phrased truly mattered little. He did appreciate the sentiment though. It meant his leash might be a bit longer than he initially suspected.

Natasha scooted over and put her hand on his knee. “Stark’s telling the truth. You’re free, Loki.”

 _[Am I? Can I walk out and stroll down the street without being captured and returned to prison? Can I return to Asgard without a noose around my neck? Can I use my powers? Can I talk?]_ He unfurled and stretched out his legs, for all to see. _[I can’t even get out of bed without tripping on a chain. I have to depend on you to feed me through a tube. I’m marked with Stark’s name, like a property. You call that freedom?]_

Natasha’s eyes were wide and shiny, and he immediately regretted his outburst. She took her hand away. He reached to keep onto it but wasn’t quick enough. She sighed in disappointment and looked away.

“You’re right,” said Stark glumly after a moment of silence. “Just because you got out of a dark place doesn’t mean it’s all fine and that all is fixed. I refused to see it like that because that would mean we failed.”

Loki blinked.

“There’s still a long way to go, but I want to make it right, this time. So, let’s forget about that stupid deal we made for a moment, okay?”

Loki narrowed his eyes. _[What do you mean?]_

“I have a better one, hopefully. We are trying to take down the organization that held you prisoner, because they are a menace to our world, you want to avoid being returned to their care and – I’ll allow myself to assume – take your revenge. We want to defend the Earth from the guy who forced you to attack us, you want to leave it behind and clear your name. Our goals align. So, let’s work together. Not exchanging favors, not negotiating terms, but as allies. As a team.”

Loki stared. Where was the catch? Could Stark really mean it? _[I have nothing to offer as an ally,]_ he said, cautiously.

“You’ve already offered enough,” said Natasha. “You sabotaged the Mad Titan’s attack and you saved me, more times that I can count. You taught me magic. You gave Stark enough new info to last him for a next couple of years of new projects. Let us pay you back.”

“Besides,” said Stark with a smirk, “I’ll get all that shit off you in no time and you can be the team’s wizard.”

Loki glared at him.

“Warlock? Cleric? Sorcerer? Because you can’t honestly mean a bard.”

He looked to Natasha for salvation.

“These are character classes from some stupid game, don’t worry about it.”

Stark scoffed. “Stupid game? Shut up, Rogue!”

“Oh, that? Then who are you in this metaphor?”

“Paladin, obviously.”

“In your dreams!”

“Hey, Loki?” Banner called out to him. “You want to help me in the lab?”

 _[Yes, please,]_ Loki said and accepted Banner’s hand, then followed him down to the workshop, the sounds of an argument chasing after him.

\---

When Loki returned to his room later in the afternoon, there was a choice of new clothes waiting for him. Not a single garment had Stark’s name on it.

\---

“Hey,” Natasha said, coming into the room.

He sat on the floor by the bed. The window was open, letting in chilly evening air. He took a shower and put on some of the new clothes. There was a choice of shirts there, some trousers too, with zippers or straps on the sides, so he was happy to ditch the cloth finally. Then he put on a sweater, knitted of some type of wool that looked scratchy but was soft under his fingers. Not because he was cold, but because he could, and the material felt nice to touch and the sleeves were long enough to cover the still sore marks on his wrists.

He put down the notebook with the half-finished sketch and waved at her. She came over and sat on the bed.

“I have to go in a couple of hours.”

He nodded.

“Are you going to be fine alone with Stark and Banner?”

_[Yes.]_

She chuckled and ran her fingers through his hair. Or at least tried to. It was too tangled, and he still didn’t find anything to comb it. Perhaps he could ask Jarvis…

“I’ll be right back,” she said and sprung up.

She came back a while later, carrying a hairbrush and a white bottle with a swirly pattern on it. And scissors. “Here’s something I wanted to do for a loooong time.”

Remonstration welled inside him. Even his captors never shaved his hair. They threatened to do that often, but never did. Perhaps because there would be nothing left to resemble the old Loki – the one who attacked Midgard, forced mortals to kneel and made grand speeches about superiority and the illusion of freedom – and it would make it harder to punish him for that man’s sins. He squashed the protest before it spilled out though. It was probably for the best. His face was already as unpresentable as it could get, even without the rat’s nest on his head.

She started with the bottle though, squeezing creamy liquid onto her palm then rubbing it into his hair. The smell was pleasant, but he couldn’t truly place it. _[What is it?]_ he asked.

“Hair conditioner.”

_[What does it do?]_

“They don’t have hair conditioners in Asgard?”

_[Not that I know of.]_

“Oh boy, you’ve been missing out!”

It didn’t answer his question, but it didn’t matter. It was calming, to just to sit there, with her hands and the brush smoothing his hair, strand by strand. He closed his eyes and allowed the sensation to carry him, make him feel… warm.

 _Wanted_.

His head drooped, so she gently touched his jaw, nudging it back up. He turned to her.

There were tears streaking down her face, but a smile still danced on her lips.

_[What’s wrong?]_

“Nothing,” she whispered. “Everything is exactly how it’s supposed to be.”

He nodded, wrapped his arms around her knees and snuggled into her thighs. Her hands ran through his hair still, even though there were no more tangles to unravel.

They stayed like this, for a long while.

“I’m done,” she said. There was no more tremble in her voice.

_[You’re not going to cut my hair?]_

“What? Of course not!”

His eyes dashed to the scissors lying abandoned on the bed.

She breathed out a small laugh. “Those are for you. I mean, if you agree. To cut _my_ hair, that is.”

_[Why?]_

“I liked how it turned out the last time. I’ve been waiting for you to do it.”

_[Okay. Go…]_

“Put my head in the water. Yeah, I know,” she laughed. She took off her clothes, grabbed a towel and, in a couple of heartbeats, he heard the shower running.

\---

“Tadaaa!” Stark exclaimed and presented Loki with… an object.

Loki crooked his head and studied the human, trying to judge if he was supposed to know what it was or not, but the boastful smirk didn’t provide him with a definitive answer. The item was a hollow half-circle, tapering towards the edges, like a headband, of one half of a collar and about as big, made of brushed metal, with a red, blinking light close to one of the edges.

“It’s a brainwave scrambler. Trademark to Tony Stark two-k thirteen.”

It didn’t clarify the issue in the slightest. _[Care to explain, or do you expect me guess?]_

“It goes on like this,” Stark put it on his own neck, “and it’s purpose is to intercept the signals the spell sends to your brain and scramble it.”

Loki squinted his eyes. _[Scramble how?]_

“Change the wavelength, mostly. By just a few millimeters, but it should be enough for your brain to not interpret it as intended.”

_[Does it… work?]_

“It should. I tried on a wave emitter and it worked just fine, but we don’t know if the spell is not rigged against that in some way, do we?”

_[Do you want me to test it?]_

“No! God, why do you even ask? Just… Put it on and we will see if it works if you trigger the spell by mistake or something, I suppose. Sadly, it can’t do anything about the physical changes you’ve told me about, so that you’ll still have to deal with…”

 _[It’s fine.]_ Loki said and took the device from Stark’s hands, then put it on his neck, just for it to slip off almost immediately. _[Couldn’t you make it go all the way around?]_

“Would you really appreciate me making you a collar to go with everything else?”

Loki huffed out a laugh. _[Probably not.]_

In the end, Stark added two magnets to clip the device to the metal of the gag and, as Loki was placing it around his neck, he realized that – while he hardly went a single day without activating the spell before – it didn’t happen even once since the escape. So – instead of following the initial plan of going back to his room and slicing open his palm to see if it works or not – he decided to follow Stark’s advice and just wait and see.

\---

He spent the rest of the day in the study. It took him way too long to find something interesting to read. The disarray and lack of organization of the library irked him more that he was willing to admit; the books didn’t seem to follow any sort of order in how they were placed on the shelves.

He started with rearranging the tomes on just one shelf and then, before he noticed, he was halfway through a complete makeover.

“Loki,” Jarvis spoke, “would you be so kind to join Mr. Stark in the living room?”

He nodded, gave the last, longing look to the books sorted into neat piles he organized by subject and date of publication, then turned to leave. The summon to the main area was a new one, Stark has only ever called him down to the workshop, and Loki was too curious of what that could mean to pass on the occasion.

Bruce made a choking sound and rushed to hide his half-eaten sandwich as Loki entered the common area and Loki had to fight hard to not roll his eyes. Between the proper formula he was being given, the various liquids Banner concocted for him and the fact that wouldn’t be able to taste anything anyway the thought of food almost didn’t bother him. _Almost_.

“Jarvis told me you’ve been wrecking my study for the last six hours. You seem unable to refrain from messing with my stuff after all,” Stark said, but there was no reproach in his voice and Loki assumed it was meant as a jest, even if he could clearly hear the subtext in Stark’s words.

 _[It was so disorganized already that even setting an explosive to go off inside the room would improve the matter,]_ Loki pointed out. _[Did you call me just to rebuke me for touching your books?]_

“No, I don’t really care, you can do whatever you please with them. Or with anything here. Well, almost anything, but I’m going to trust your judgement in that regard.”

Loki blinked, puzzled.

“Anyway,” Stark continued, unaware or unwilling to acknowledge Loki’s reaction, “I’ve been running simulations for the last two days straight and I think I figured out how to open the shackles without having to melt the metal down with you still wearing it.”

Loki’s heart swerved in his ribcage.

“The alloy kept most of the properties of vibranium and there’s very little we can do to cut it, especially with such a small margin of error. But that also means that it has similar energy retaining attributes and it’s susceptible to become brittle at certain stages of resonance. If we get the latch part to resonate at just the right frequency, it should be possible to make it crack, without even touching it directly. It shouldn’t even set off whatever the magic does, if firing a high concentrated ray of photons didn’t do it, ultrasounds shouldn’t either. Well, at least in theory…”

Not everything Stark just let out of his mouth made perfect sense to Loki, but he understood enough to get the general idea. Even if it doesn’t work and it does activate the spell, they would have a chance to vet Stark’s previous invention. _[Okay, let’s try it.]_

“That were the good news. The bad news is… I can’t do it here. The method requires a high range, high precision wave generator, and it’s not something people keep in their summer houses. Not even me. And building one, especially in a way that wouldn’t make the postmen suspicious, would take months.”

 _[I understand,]_ Loki said, trying to keep disappointment from showing up in his face. To have that hope dangled it front of his eyes and see it snuffed out immediately was harsh, but he realized it wasn’t Stark’s intention and he added a placating, _[I’m sure you’ll think of something else, given time.]_

“I haven’t finished yet. I can’t do it here, but I happen to have one of those in my tower. So, I called you in to say we’re going on a road trip.”

_[You want me to leave here and fly to New York?]_

“No. We can’t fly. Romanoff took the Quinjet and I’m almost certain all my private planes and choppers are being traced after…” Stark paused and scratched his bearded chin. “So, we’re not flying. We’re driving.”

Loki narrowed his eyes. _[You think it’s safe?]_

“Should be. The car Bruce used is registered to Pepper’s dead aunt maiden’s name, I don’t know how deep they would have to dig to connect _that_ to me.”

That wasn’t what Loki meant, but it didn’t matter. Stark seemed resolute to do it and Loki wanted to try, very much. _[Tomorrow?]_

“Tonight. It will be safer to drive by night. Less traffic, smaller chance of someone recognizing us.”

Loki’s eyes dashed to Banner.

“I’ll prepare a supply of the formula for you so you can administer it yourself,” the doctor said. “And you probably noticed I’ve been weaning you off the painkillers for a while anyway.”

Loki did not notice that. _[Okay, let’s go tonight.]_

\---

“Packing” was a bizarre concept. Not only because he now had possessions like a proper person again, but also because he never had to do it before. When he travelled as a part of the royal entourage the palace servants took care of all required supplies, and when he was on his own, he could always use his magic to conjure anything he needed, as long as he remembered where he left it. He usually did.

It was still something to do other than sit and look out of the window, so he got on with that, stashing some of the clothes, the notebook and the hairbrush into the small suitcase Banner was kind enough to borrow him. He swept the room and noticed the communication device Natasha brough him he left on the bedside table.

Natasha didn’t get a chance to explain the works, but, with some help from Jarvis, Loki managed to turn it on and connect it to the network. The explanations about the ‘internet’ Jarvis provided were not entirely clear and the very idea seemed quite baffling, yet inherently fascinating at the same time and not one many other civilizations shared.

There were multiple ways of long-range communications available to someone as powerful as the old Loki was, be it via magic, or the Æsir technology, that still carried magic at the core. But it was something reserved for important people, for the people with agendas and plans and positions to hold. The common folk would be sending letters or messengers, or just simply walking over. Asgard’s capitol was grand, but not extensive, one could set out at the break of dawn on one end and arrive at the other before the first bell rung on the citadel. And reaching the edge of the world was a matter of two days at most.

Perhaps that was the reason why mortal technology did not discriminate between the rich and the poor – on Midgard that classification mattered a lot than the status of one’s birth, according both to his own observations and Natasha’s words – the distances made it a necessity.

Or perhaps it was just in humanity’s nature. They barely learned to walk, yet they built their cities high to the skies and aimed their eyes at the stars, toying with concept their sparse understanding of reality couldn’t fully comprehend. There was foolish naivete in those pursuits, but also wanderlust and unhindered ambition. Loki never thought about mortals in those terms before, but understood it well now, after seeing the wide-eyed fascination in Natasha’s reactions and pure thirst for knowledge behind each of Stark’s questions. And – even with his grasp on the rules of the universe limited by his civilization’s level – Stark could still come on top of some the Æsir Loki knew with the scope of competence, all while being a lot less conceited about it.

He stared at the phone for a while, then stashed it into his pocket, not exactly sure why. Most humans carried it that way, so it must be the proper etiquette.

There was a knock at the door. Loki stood there, unable to respond, waiting for the visitant to realize their mistake and just come in, but the door stayed closed, so he let out a sigh and came over to answer.

“Ready to go?” Stark asked.

_[Yes.]_

“Great, I’ll get the car ready.” He turned to leave then stopped and leaned against the doorframe, his arms crossed. “We will have to stop to refuel. Grab something to…” Stark’s eyes fell on Loki’s face and darted away.

_[I already did.]_

Stark nodded. “If you don’t want to do this, we can figure something else out, you know.”

_[Why wouldn’t I?]_

“I don’t know… It must be hard, going to the place where the whole crapshoot started?”

The thought didn’t even occur to Loki. It didn’t feel real, like it happened to someone else, not to him. _[It’s fine.]_

Stark nodded again. “Let’s go then.”

Loki grabbed his suitcase, took the last survey of the room and went with Stark.

\---

Banner’s car was an old Volvo wagon and there was something amusing about the idea of driving Loki around in a car that was made in the region that gave birth to the whole Norse mythology thing.

There was no interior camera in the car, nor was it hooked to Tony’s network like the rest of his cars, so he just placed his glasses on the dashboard with the camera aimed at Loki, so Jarvis could still provide translations. Loki raised an eyebrow, but didn’t ask for the reason, so he must’ve gathered it on his own. He didn’t speak for a long time though, other than to offer a vivid rebuttal to Tony’s suggestion he should fasten his seatbelt. Tony didn’t argue, just let the god bear the insistent beeping for the next couple of minutes, until he yielded and fastened the belt with an annoyed huff.

“If you’re not going to entertain your chauffeur with a conversation you can at least put some music on,” Tony said, then pointed at the dashboard, where the radio was located.

Loki studied the panel for a couple of seconds. It was always fascinating to watch the god figure out unfamiliar things, be it the phone Romanoff gave him, the thermostat in his room or the equipment in Tony’s workshop. Not asking for directions, he would rather methodically observe and experiment, until he cracked the secret.

Just like now. He tried out a few buttons until he found the right one then turned the frequency knob till he landed on a station. His brows furrowed. _[How does it work?]_

Tony explained, about the waves and transmitters and radio stations. He abandoned oversimplifying the ideas for Loki’s convenience a few minutes into their first conversation. Even if Loki didn’t recognize the term, there would be some analogy Tony could use to describe it, right around the corner.

 _[Neat,]_ Loki judged, then changed the stations, until he ran out of range. _[Is it supposed to be entertainment?]_

Tony snorted. “Technically? Yes. Now it’s mostly commercials trying to sell you stuff you don’t need and the same couple of songs over and over. You can try the glovebox, Bruce ought to have some decent music in there.”

Loki went through the stash of cassettes, until he picked one and studied the cover in the faint light of the setting sun.

“Oh, that’s a great choice! Put it on, I got a feeling you’re going to like this one.”

He let Loki figure out where to put the tape, which took just a couple of seconds, then they drove on into the deepening darkness, while “Starman” by David Bowie played from the speakers.

\---

They stopped at a gas station two hours later. Tony wasn’t looking forward to it, knowing he would have to ask Loki to cover his face and stay hidden, so it came as relief when the god grabbed a scarf, wrapped it around his head and pulled on his hood, completely unprompted.

He paid in cash. The clerk eyed him weirdly for a couple of seconds, looked out at the car by the distributor, shook his head and handed him the change. Tony bit his tongue before he told the kid to keep it. He stashed the coins and a couple of crumpled bills in his pocket and left.

He stopped a couple miles outside of town, on a deserted parking in the woods. 

_[Why are we stopping again?]_

“I want to stretch my legs for a moment. I didn’t want to stay at the station any longer than I needed to,” Tony said, grabbed his glasses and stepped out of the car. A few seconds passed and he heard the passenger door open.

Loki’s chain rattled as he moved. It didn’t get any easier to look at the shackles – or the muzzle, especially after learning what the cursed piece of metal actually did to Loki – and even hearing the rattle right now sent a shiver down Tony’s spine. And Tony was glad it did. It wasn’t normal and pretending it was would only make it worse. It would be hard to not marvel at Loki’s composure though and Tony did his best to keep a straight face, no matter how much the sight made his stomach churn.

 _Just a few hours more_ , he wanted to tell himself – and Loki – but not only he wasn’t absolutely certain it would work, he also knew that – even if it did – it wasn’t anywhere close to fully solving the problem. He still had no idea what to do with the gag. SHIELD recorded partial signatures when they triggered the spell and Tony scoured the records, and the longer he analyzed them, the bleaker his conclusion got: there was no energy conversion going on that he could block. The spell drew the chemical energy straight from Loki’s cells, like a parasite sucking life from its host. And there was the only way to cut off that source – kill him.

Loki stood next to him, his face barely visible in the moonlight and Tony wondered how it all looked from inside of god’s head. He seemed to keep it under the lid most of the time, but Bruce still had three pages filled with notes about the symptoms of PTSD and clinical depression he observed. He had one for Natasha too. Perhaps for Tony as well.

Loki turned to him and moved to speak. Tony already caught the few most common signs, but now it was too dark to see. The camera had a broader spectral range though and soon he heard Jarvis’ translation.

_[Can I drive?]_

“Uhm, have you ever driven a car before?”

_[No.]_

“Do you know where to go?”

_[No.]_

“Can you read the road signs?”

_[No.]_

“Not that I oppose to giving aliens driving lessons on a principle, but it’s nine pm, we are kinda on a hurry and I really don’t want to end up in a ditch.”

_[I watched you drive. It doesn’t look that hard and you can tell me which way to go and what the signs mean. Besides, the few I figured on my own you didn’t follow anyway.]_

Was Loki just giving him shit for driving over the speed limit?

“Okay,” he said and returned to the car and opened the driver’s door. “Show me what you’ve learned.”

 _[This is what you steer with,]_ Loki showed at the steering wheel.

“That was easy.”

_[This shows the speed you’re going with and this the engine cycles per unit of time. The white area is the safe range, I’d assume.]_

“Mhm.”

_[This adds fuel to the engine, making you speed up, this is a brake, this disconnects that rod there from the engine so you can swap between the modes.]_

“Gears, but yes.”

_[This indicates which direction you go on an intersection with that blinking lights outside. I’m not sure what this does though.]_

“Windshield wipers. Get in.”

\---

The first few minutes were rough, but then it went surprisingly smoothly, and Tony stopped worrying about his own life for the most part. Another half an hour and Loki started waving his hand at his explanations of road signs and yielding rules. Then he ignored Tony’s instruction and picked his own way on an intersection, according to the guide sign and Tony congratulated himself on a great job he did as an instructor, with only a little dose of sarcasm.

He dozed off somewhere around Worcester and when he woke up to Loki shaking his arm, they were at the gate leading to the Tower’s garage. Loki apparently figured out Google Maps in the meantime.

“Turn around and go for the Western gate. It leads to the private garage,” Tony rasped and rubbed his eyes, then pulled himself up just in time to see Loki merge back into the traffic. It was a tight fit and the cab behind them honked. Tony unrolled his window and showed the driver middle finger.

\---

“The tower was on a full lockdown. I need to restart all the systems and do a full health check before we can proceed. It’s going to take a few hours, we can get some sleep, Jarvis will wake us up when he comes back online.”

Loki nodded in agreement. _[Where can I sleep?]_ he asked and Tony really wished his eyes didn’t dash to the door of the storage room they locked him in after the battle, before SHIELD came to pick him up.

“Wherever you wish. Guestrooms are down that hall. The corner one has the nicest bathroom.”

 _[Thank you, Stark,]_ Loki said and shuffled his way down the corridor. Tony pinched the bridge of his nose and went to pour himself a drink.

\---

Loki woke up from a cloying nightmare, full of metal and hot pain and cold darkness, lying on the floor, tangled in bedsheets, covered in sweat, tears drying on his face. He sat down with his arms wrapped around his knees until he could breathe normally again and the sunrise over a city waking up to life before his eyes pushed the visions of Hydra’s cell away from his mind.

The port on his shoulder itched, so he ran his hand over it. It came up bloody. He must have damaged the skin when the tossed and turned in his sleep and tugged the tube free.

He stared at the blood on his fingers.

Stark’s scrambler worked.

\---

He knew he wouldn’t be able to sleep. The bathroom was indeed nice, with full windows continuing from the bedroom and a huge bath sunken into the floor. He considered using it, but only for a moment, it would take too long to fill, and besides, the shower was nice too.

Refreshed and changed, he wandered out into the living area. Stark was probably still asleep, but he might be able to find something to occupy himself as he waits for the human to wake up.

The view from this side was even more spectacular. The sun was rising, painting the tops of the buildings with its light, gleaming in the windows, and turning the streets into shadowy valleys. It was nothing like the golden glory of Asgard with her majestic spires and towers, but it was quite a sight nonetheless, and Loki relished in the simple act of just standing there, soaking in the view, not at all looking forward to the long hours he was going to spend in the workshop. He had no idea how it looked, here in the tower, but if it was to be anything like the one in the forest house, it would have a low hanging ceiling and no windows.

Stark stepped out into the living area. He was wearing the same clothes he wore yesterday, and his gait was a little unsteady. “You can’t sleep either?”

Loki shook his head and turned back to the window.

“I restarted the main computer and set the calibration options. It’s going to take a moment, but we should be good to go at midday. You want to check for yourself?”

Loki shook his head again.

Stark rummaged through the cupboard behind the bar for a while, glasses clinking, then walked over and stood beside Loki. He was holding a glass with an amber colored liquid in his hand, some sort of alcoholic beverage by the smell of it. He raised it halfway to his mouth, shot Loki a sideways glare, then reconsidered and put the glass away. Then he just stayed there, silent and thoughtful, his eyes on some unspecified point in the streets below.

 _[Are you thinking about throwing me out of the window?]_ Loki asked.

Stark snorted. “Kinda? Can you blame me though?” His voice was a bit slurry.

Loki shook his head.

“You think you’d live?”

Loki stepped closer to the glass pane and looked down, assessing the distance. The ground was awfully far away. _[I don’t know. Probably not.]_

There was another stretch of silence.

“You let me get the bracelets on, didn’t you?” Stark said, matter-of-factly.

_[Yes.]_

Stark stood there for a moment longer, pondering. “Thanks, Reindeer Games,” he said in the end and patted Loki on the shoulder lightly. He turned to leave. Without thinking, Loki grabbed his sleeve. The human frowned and Loki pulled his hand away, a bit quicker than it was necessary. “What is it?”

_[What does it mean?]_

“What? The nickname?”

_[Yes. You called me that before.]_

Stark chuckled. “Nothing. It’s a movie.”

_[What about?]_

“I don’t know,” Stark admitted with a grin and a careless roll of his shoulders. “You’d have to ask Jarvis. I’ve never seen it, it just felt like something funny to say in the heat of the moment and the title seemed fitting.”

Loki’s brows furrowed.

“You know? Reindeers? Big, scary animals? With antlers?”

Loki chortled and rolled his eyes.

“Yeah, well, you know what they say, never ask a genius about their process, or you’ll end up disappointed,” Stark said and reached for his glass. “Are there any other burning questions you’d like answered immediately, or can I go back to hunkering over my equipment?”

Loki hesitated. Stark’s tone was flippant, but there was still an open invitation in his words and there was no saying when he would get another opportunity like that. There were so many doubts swarming in his brain, he didn’t even know where to start…

Stark tapped his fingers on his glass impatiently.

 _[No,]_ Loki said. _[Thank you, Stark.]_

The man eyed him oddly, one eyebrow raised. “No problem,” he said. “You can call me Tony by the way. It’s always one letter less to spell.”

With that, Stark flashed a smile, turned on his heel and left. Loki stood there, looking at the human walking away, feeling even more confused than before.

\---

“Put your hands in the air and turn away from the window,” sounded from behind. “Slowly.”

Loki didn’t even notice anyone coming in, lost in thought.

Clint Barton was standing in the hallway by the elevators, his gun already out, raised and pointed at Loki. Loki brought his hands up in a gesture of placation.

“What the fuck are _you_ doing here?” Barton’s brows furrowed as he took the sight in, his eyes sliding down from Loki’s face and landing firmly on the fetters. “What the fuck is this?”

_[And how does it look like?]_

A hint of surprise crossed mortal’s face, but he was quick to control it. “Don’t get all smart on me.”

_[It is not my intent.]_

“On your knees,” Barton said and released the safety lever, the gun still trained at Loki’s head. He took a step forward and urged Loki on with a wave of the pistol. “Don’t make me tell you twice.”

_[I am not your enemy.]_

Barton fired. The bullet flew a thumb from Loki’s head, ruffling his hair, then hit the window, cracking the glass. “Don’t make me tell you _thrice_.”

Loki fell to his knees.

“Put your hands above your head.”

Loki did.

“Where’s she?”

Loki glowered.

Barton rolled his eyes in exasperation. “You can move your hands to answer. But keep them where I can see them.”

_[Depends on who you mean.]_

“Wrong answer.” Barton fired again and the bullet flew right past Loki’s ear. “Try harder.”

He was now only a few steps away.

_[Why not ask her yourself?]_

Clint growled and put his other hand on the grip of the pistol, still moving forward. “You’re really asking for this, don’t you?” He stopped in front of Loki, aimed the gun at his throat, then pushed his chin up, forcing his head back. The barrel panned up, over the muzzle and across Loki’s cheek, then rested against his forehead. Barton’s eyes were burning with hatred.

The man did not want explanations; he didn’t want answers. He was angry. He wanted Loki to suffer the way he did. He wanted the control back.

Loki sucked in a careful breath and met his eyes, flexing his fingers, his arms still up in the air.

Barton’s finger twitched on the trigger and he pushed on the gun. “Beg for your life,” he hissed.

Loki straightened up and pushed back, pressing his forehead to the barrel. It was scoldingly hot.

_Do it._

Barton’s hands were shaking, his fingers curled around the hilt of the weapon tightly. His breaths became quick and shallow.

“I hope you’re going to pay for that window. I just had it fixed,” Stark’s voice boomed from the speaker, then the door leading to the workshop opened and the man himself stepped out, his armor assembling around his body as he moved. “Put down your gun, Clint. I mean it.”

Barton retreated a few steps back, switching stances from offensive to defensive, and Loki stumbled forward, before he caught his balance. He stayed, frozen in place. Barton’s weapon was still up, still trained firmly at Loki’s head, still ready to fire.

Stark circled the room. “Can we all relax for a second?” he said. “Dial it back a notch and talk this through?”

Clint’s eyes dashed between Loki and Stark, his lips pursed. “You’re in on this?!”

“Depends on what you think ‘ _this’_ is,” Stark replied and stepped between Loki and Clint, his pose wide and undeniably aggressive. “Put down your gun. Unless you want to find out whose trigger finger is happier.” His tone was still casual but now carried a sharper edge. The propulsor on his palm glowed menacingly. “Or do you think it’s only fun when your opponent is completely defenseless?”

“You’re going to shoot _me_ over _him_?”

“You’re the one who came to my home and aimed a gun at my guest.”

“Your guest?” Clint echoed numbly.

“Yep. Now drop it before…”

“Before what?!”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Stark exclaimed, losing his temper. His visor closed, the boosters fired and – in a blink of an eye – he was in Clint’s face, grabbing the gun out of his outstretched hands and bodily ramming into him. Stark’s fist connected to Barton’s solar plexus, knocking him down, until he landed in a sliding halt a dozen steps away. Stark pulled the gun apart, then tossed the empty arm into one corner of the room and the clip to the other. “Now, we can talk.” He turned to Loki. “Are you okay?”

Loki let out the breath he was holding and slowly lowered his arms. _[Yes.]_ He accepted Stark’s hand and got up. Clint pushed himself off the ground with his elbows and was watching the scene playing out through slanted eyes.

“Can I take the armor off?” Stark prompted, “or are we going for another round?”

Barton regarded Loki with a lasting, hateful glare then dragged himself up, limped through the room and collapsed onto the coach with a pained grunt. “Whatever,” he muttered. He reached for his ankle, pulled out a second gun from the concealed holster, tossed it on the coffee table then waved his hand, “here, I’m unarmed now.”

The armor unfolded and Stark stepped out. He went to the bar and poured himself another glass. “Bourbon?” he asked, raising the bottle at Barton.

“Fuck yeah,” Clint grumbled.

Stark handed a drink to Barton, then sat in the armchair across from the man. Barton drained the glass in one long swig and put it down on the table with a lot more force than the action required.

Loki remained where he was, unsure what to do. He did not want to cause another outburst and force Stark to have to deal with it. What was the proper Midgardian protocol for situations like those?

Stark noticed the hesitation and beckoned Loki to sit in the second armchair, just next to where he was sitting.

Loki moved to follow the order, suddenly mindful of the chain, its loud jangling reverberating sharply in the uncomfortable silence filling the room, on every step of the excruciatingly long walk from where he was standing to where Stark wanted him to sit. Clint’s eyes followed him closely. Loki gritted his teeth and straightened his shoulders, swallowing the indignation that seethed in his gut. It was too easy to forget his lowly status around Natasha. Or Stark. Even Banner, most of the time. But there was no escaping the awareness now, under Barton’s vehement scrutiny.

“Didn’t your parents teach you it’s rude to stare?” Stark said.

“I never knew my parents,” Clint responded airily and slouched back, his gaze still firmly set on Loki, until Loki reached the chair and sat down. Barton scoffed. “Do you treat all your _guests_ to high-end BDSM gear or just the chosen ones? Should I feel left out?”

Stark crossed his legs and sloshed the liquid in his glass lazily without looking up.

“What, no snappy Stark-brand one-liner for me?”

“No, go ahead, use up all your stupid jokes,” Stark tossed back. “Just let me know when you’re done, and you have anything actually valuable to contribute.”

“Why is he here?”

Stark ignored the question and turned to Loki, leaning on the armrest, and propping his chin up with his hand. “Don’t you hate it when people talk about you like you’re not even in the room?”

Loki let out an exasperated sigh. While he appreciated the show of amicable familiarity Stark was putting on to shield him from Barton’s retaliation without further escalating the circumstances, it wasn’t going to work. Loki’s crimes against Barton were too severe, the resentment had too much time to cultivate. Regardless of what Stark says, it will only drive another wedge into the seam of his alliance with Clint, a connection Loki’s mere presence was already straining dangerously. And Barton was not only Stark’s ally, but also Natasha’s friend, a man she respected. Loved. He couldn’t force her to choose. She sacrificed enough already.

He had to fix this, no matter what it cost.

And there was only one way to do it: giving Barton what he wanted. What he needed. And Loki knew exactly what it was.

It didn’t make it easier, not at all.

He turned to Clint and looked him in the eye. _[I know you resent me for my actions,]_ he said with slow and deliberate signs, giving himself time to gather the remnants of his mettle as he went _. [You have a valid reason to do so.]_ He pulled on his sleeves and slowly took off his sweater. Barton’s brows furrowed but he did not comment. The scarf around Loki’s neck was next to go, revealing marks on his skin, only just starting to heal. Clint blinked, as he took in the sight. Loki meticulously unbuttoned his shirt, then took it off, not trying to hide the pained wince when the cloth brushed the still sore places. He stood up.

“Loki? What are you doing?” asked Stark, alarm clear in his voice, even if his words were only a snitch louder than a winded whisper. Loki ignored him. It might not be the wisest thing to do when his wellbeing depended on Stark’s protection, but he couldn’t back off now. He crossed the three steps that divided him from where Clint was sitting, then collapsed to his knees, his eyes now level with Clint’s increasingly confounded glare. _[I’ll accept whatever punishment you see fit for my transgressions against you.]_ He paused, fighting to get his breathing steady. _[I just want you to know that I’m not your enemy nor a threat to you or your world anymore and there’s very little that you can do that hasn’t been done to me already. But, as it stands, I still have my life, and it is free for you to take, should you choose so.]_

He hung his head down and let his hands fall to his sides.

There was a shocked exclamation from Stark as the translation played out in full in his ear. Then nothing. No one spoke, no one moved. The silence in the room was deafening. Loki’s head was spinning, and his heart rammed against the confines of his ribcage. He didn’t know what Barton would do. Perhaps he’d just strike him, perhaps he’d demand Loki to be locked up again or tortured some more. Or he would decide to take him on the offer.

He wished Stark weren’t there to witness this, but there was nothing the man didn’t see already. The testament of Loki’s failures, written directly on his flesh.

He was glad Natasha was not. She would try to stop him and it needed to be done, no matter the outcome.

Loki fought the urge to look up. At the emotion ruling Barton’s face, to judge which option he was considering. At the weapon, still on the table, still within Barton’s reach. At Stark, to see the disappointment in his eyes.

The Æsir scoffed at the way mortals divided time into tiny fractions, marked their years with seasons, months with _weeks_ and days with _hours_ , and _minutes_ , and _seconds_. It’s to add import to their insignificant, short lives, they’d say. Loki would agree, once upon a time. But now he could feel it, the excruciating length of every heartbeat, every draw of breath, the burden of every passing moment that could be his last weighting him down, compressing his chest, pulsing in his head.

A creak of leather pierced the silence as Clint shifted in his seat. “Okay, I get the point,” he rasped, then cleared his throat. “Put your clothes back on, will you?”

Loki lifted his head and looked up warily. Barton averted his gaze and urged him on with a flick of his wrist.

He slowly took his bearing and stood up, holding onto the edge of the table. His breath hitched, and he swayed. Stark sprung up and rushed to help, grabbing his arm, holding him up, and leading him back to his seat. There was a muted gasp, when he turned and Clint got a look at the old scar and all the fresher injuries on his back.

“Okay. What is this? Who the fuck did that?” he enquired. “Stark?”

The human did not respond immediately but looked up to Loki and eyed him questioningly. Loki stared back for a moment with growing disorientation before he finally understood. Stark was waiting for his permission, unwilling to share the details of his shame without his assent. He nodded. Only then Stark started talking.

“The lovely artwork on Loki’s back is a souvenir from the guy who sent him to Earth in the first place,” he explained. “Under duress, if that’s not clear from the context. The muzzle is a thoughtful gift from his piece of shit of a father. The rest is a happy little collab between SHIELD and Hydra.”

Loki put his shirt back on, sat down and pushed his hands between his legs to stop them from shaking. Expression on Barton’s face was a mix of disgust, confusion, and incredulity.

“Am I getting this right? Someone tortured you to get you to attack us?” Clint asked finally, after another stretch of stunned silence. He wasn’t looking at Loki, not truly, only at some unspecified point over Loki’s shoulder.

_[Yes.]_

“Why?”

_[My master wanted me to retrieve the cube and bring it to him. He used the scepter’s influence to ensure my obedience, among… other things.]_

“So, all the rest was just a smoke screen?”

 _[Yes.]_ It was an oversimplification, but still close enough to the truth.

“Jesus fucking Christ.” The thrum of appalment in Barton’s voice shouldn’t sting nearly as much as the odium, but somehow it was even worse. The pitiful shadow of himself Loki has become wasn’t even worth his disdain, now.

Clint bent over, his elbows on his knees, and hid his face in his hands. “I knew it. I fucking knew it,” he murmured, then rubbed his face. He picked up the empty glass. “I’m going to need another few of these.”

He marched towards the bar to fix himself another drink and Stark turned to Loki again, placing a hand on his shoulder. “How did you know it was going to work?” he asked quietly, once Clint was out of the earshot.

_[I didn’t.]_

The mortal regarded him for a moment with an unreadable expression, then sighed and his hand traced a circle on Loki’s shoulder.

“So, what’s the deal with that?” Clint waved his hand at the shackles. He didn’t bother with glasses, he brought the whole bottle and drank directly from it, draining half in one go. “Cause I’m guessing it’s not a kinky roleplay after all.”

“Another keepsake from Hydra,” Stark provided. “Vibranium alloy with an enchantment from a kid wizard. We’ve been working on taking it off when you decided to pop in and change the theme of the party to pointing guns at people.”

“Mhm,” Burton hummed and took another swig from the bottle. “I really hoped I misheard you the first time you said ‘Hydra’.”

“Welcome to the club,” Stark said. “Membership fee is due on Friday.”

Clint slumped back and ran his hand though his hair. “Nat’s been trying to tell me, you know. Right after she woke up in the hospital and later on, too. Then she warned me again, just before she fell off the grid.” He sighed. “I didn’t believe her. I didn’t _want_ to believe her...”

_[It would make the horrors you suffered at my hand pointless.]_

Clint watched him talk through narrowed eyes, then he chuckled and nodded. “You picked up Nat’s flair in sign,” he said. “It’s so weird.”

Loki didn’t know what to answer to that. He had no frame of reference to know exactly what Barton meant.

“You were pretty easy to convince this time around, all things considered,” Stark pointed out. “So, what changed?”

“Well, you were not the only one to do your homework. After Nat ditched SHIELD and went underground I knew it must have had something to do with you,” he said, turning to Loki. “Well, it wasn’t that hard, she basically told me she was going to break you out and I knew she was serious, though I refused to believe the reason she gave me. I started digging. Finding you would lead me to her, maybe even before she made her move, giving me the time to stop her. That should be easy, right? Well, it wasn’t, not even close. It was like you just disappeared, without a trace. Then I found… stuff. Questionable stuff, even by SHIELD’s standards. Entire missions being conducted without as much as a single report, squads assigned to targets that did not exist officially, just as if there was a second set of objectives, completely separate from SHIELD’s purpose. A group operating within to further their own goals. And suddenly, Nat’s warning made so much more sense. If she was telling the truth there, what else could she be right about?”

“But you still stuck with them,” Stark said, “after learning all that.”

“I learned precisely jack squat, just disjointed bits and pieces. It’s still fucking SHIELD, Stark!” Burton bellowed, enraged. “They have years of experience protecting their own intelligence interests and – unlike you – I don’t exactly have all the resources in the world. What else was I supposed to do? Ditch it all and disappear into the woodwork, like Nat did? She might have her reasons, but it was still stupid as hell. She just set everyone on her tail. Staying inside meant I might get a warning before shit went down.”

“You could’ve come to me, we would have figured something out. You live in my goddamned tower, for fuck’s sake, you could’ve warned me at least!”

“And how was I to know you’re not in on that?! When it comes to shadow government and secret societies working to hasten the new world order, you’re like the perfect candidate.”

“I do see your point,” Stark laughed. “Well, I’m not, in case you didn’t realize by now.”

“Yeah,” Clint said and tipped the bottle, draining the last bit of liquid in it. “I got that part.”

“So, we’re good, now? No more shooting?”

“Yeah,” Clint said and turned his eyes to Loki again, “we’re good now.” He sighed and shook his head. “Uhm, and sorry for the window.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A longer chapter and I hope it lasts you for a while, because there will be no new one until at least Sunday (I'm sorry, I have some catching up with real life to do). You don't have to refresh the page every hour any-more :)
> 
> Bowie was still alive when this takes place and in this universe Tony probably met him at one party or another (you're free to make it your headcanon as I did).
> 
> Also, I've shown this chapter to a friend and I was told Loki acts very inconsistently here. Yes, he does, but I wrote it like that on purpose, he is recovering from a massive trauma that's still pretty much going on, there ought to be some lapses, right? I'm not sure how it comes off in the text though. Can you feel it's intentional or does it read like shitty character writing?
> 
> Another complaint was that I made Loki too much of a Mary Sue, as it, he is good at too much stuff. I'm not sure if I'm not pushing it too far, but I went with the Groundhog day's logic - what skills can you master if you have a thousand years to burn, a decently functional brain and you're willing to learn? I came up with a pretty straightforward answer - a lot. Again - I'd appreciate the input, I'll take it under consideration when my perfectionism inevitably wins over and I go for a rewrite of the whole thing. 
> 
> This is basically two chapters put into one, as I could find no good place for a chapter break, so the total number of chapters will probably go down to 59 (and that only if my plan is solid and doesn't need revisions as I go).
> 
> Plus, somebody should really tell Loki how company logos on clothes work.
> 
> And, if anyone needs visual aid in imagining the car, it's a c.a. 1990 Volvo 240 wagon. It's green, because of course it is. Go look it up, it's a beauty.


	51. Dear

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which our characters excel at many things, mostly making themselves miserable.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was beta'ed by Spacefloosie (for the third time, HOW DO I TAG. Please, tell me or PUT ME OUT OF MY MISERY). <3
> 
> Only wording and grammar though, so any stupid plot points are still on me.
> 
> Also, as you can see, I lied with the Sunday deadline.

Natasha spent two days at close surveillance, just to find out that the movements she was able to observe from the outside were just retrograde motions, meant to throw the potential onlookers off the scent. Once she got inside it became painfully clear that the base was deserted.

Quite recently though, so it looked like what they’d done got some sort of an effect. She couldn’t tell how much actual good it did, and she was even more doubtful after finding the empty cells, cleaned out archive and the server room that was smashed to pieces by what looked like an anti-personnel mine going off inside.

One of the guards wandered off too far from the group and she took him off with a tranquilizer dart, dragged him into the brush and picked his brain. The man was just a low-level drone and saw very little of what happened in the facility. He didn’t even know who he really worked for, for all he was told was that an American enterprise hired guards and paid good money. She left him in the greenery, unconscious but alive. She took the gun, though.

Before she left, she set fire to the generators’ room at the back and watched from a distance as it spread through the facility. The blast that took out the servers also took care of the fire alarm system, so it was already too late by the time the soldiers outside got a grip of what was happening.

She sat in her hiding spot for an hour.

The hope that it would make her feel at least a bit better faded the higher the flames roared. Even the very act of destruction wasn’t satisfying anymore. She just wanted this to be done and over with it. She wanted to go home.

She wrapped her jacket closer around herself, pulled up her hood and started on the long hike back to where she left the jet, first snowflakes of the season falling around her. The Swiss Alps were beautiful at this time of the year, bathed in the last rays of the setting sun.

It was still not completely dark when she reached the plane, and she had some minutes to burn. It might be a good opportunity for meditation – she had neglected the habit lately, with so many other things going on at once – but she felt drained, both physically and mentally and just sat back in the pilot’s chair, waiting for the interior to warm up. She turned her phone back on and went through a couple of texts from Stark, informing her about the progress, then the New York plan, then the fact they had arrived safely and were going to stay in the tower for a while and that the field looked clear so far.

Then there was another message, from an unlisted contact. She clicked on it idly, suspecting it being from Bruce, because who else could have this number…

It was from Loki, and it was just three words:

_Barton is here._

She cursed, changed the flight destination to New York and fired up the engines.

\----

“You ready?” Tony asked. Over the course of the last couple of hours he had set up the machine, checked and rechecked the parameters and had had Jarvis run another simulation, just in case. There was nothing more to do but to go forth with the procedure. There were no more tests he could attempt before the big event. He had no samples of the alloy that were not currently attached to a living being.

He himself was as ready as he could be. The science was strong. He just wished he didn’t have to do something that had – to his best knowledge – never been attempted in the history of engineering, with a subject who was there because they had no other choice.

 _[Yes. You can start.]_ Loki said.

“Do we need to go through the hoops of me forcing a promise out of you again, or can we skip that part, and you’ll just warn me if something’s wrong?”

 _[Your scrambler works, Stark.]_ Loki said and ran his hand under his hair, where the gizmo sat.

“I’m almost too afraid to ask how you found that out.”

Loki undid the top buttons of his shirt and showed Stark the torn patch of skin around the catheter in his vein. _[I pulled the tube out in my sleep by mistake. There was enough blood to trigger the spell twice over, yet it didn’t even wake me up.]_

“That’s great. Also, sucks.” Tony bit the inside of his cheek. “Does the port still work?”

 _[I don’t know,]_ Loki said and there was doubt in his glare.

Bruce said the central line was already barely functional, because of how poorly it was maintained and how thoughtlessly it was used.

_[If it doesn’t work, Banner can redo it, now.]_

That was also a good point. The only reason Bruce still made do with the existing line was that installing a new one elsewhere in Loki’s body was an invasive procedure that would, more likely than not, trigger the goddamned mystical bullshit. If Tony’s device truly managed to shield him from its effects, the risk was much lower.

Tony was really getting fed up with magic quickly.

Still… “You’re left with the physical effects though.”

 _[It’s nothing compared to…]_ Loki paused, sighed and folded his hands back in his lap.

Tony took in a deep breath. There was no point in pretending this could go down painlessly, both in the metaphorical and in the literal sense. It should be Loki’s call and Tony could only ensure the god was making an informed decision.

“There’s a chance the wave emitter will trigger it too.”

_[I know. I don’t care. If you can get those off me, it will be a great favor, no matter what it costs.]_

Tony nodded. “Okay, hop on then,” he said and patted his hand on the central workbench. Loki climbed onto it and placed his feet between the claws.

“I need to…”

_[Do it. It’s fine.]_

“You want a pillow to sit on?”

_[No.]_

“Something else?”

Loki shook his head.

“It’s going to take a while,” Tony warned. “We need to go slowly to make sure the waves have the right frequency and are focused in the exact point we want them to. It might take a few hours. You’re sure you don’t want something to distract yourself with? I’ll have to leave the room to lessen the risk of interference, so…”

Loki hesitated. _[Can I get something to read then?]_

“Sure, there are some books in the office, maybe you can pick something of interest from there. And if not, there’s a more extensive library on Pepper’s level, two floors up.”

The god nodded and scrambled off the table, the chain clinking, and Tony imagined him trudging his way back and forth across the acres of floor space that divided them from the office one floor below, or almost twice as far to the library upstairs. “Or, alternatively, you can use this,” he said, and grabbed a laptop from one of the desks by the wall. “You can get virtually any piece of literature ever written by a human as an e-book.”

 _[Ebook?]_ Loki’s hands spelled, unsure.

“A digitized version that can be displayed on a screen.”

Loki’s face turned thoughtful for a moment. _[That’s an interesting idea,]_ he judged and took the laptop from Tony’s hands, then carefully placed it on the workbench.

“I can show you how it works,” Tony offered.

_[I saw you, Banner and Natasha use these before. I’ll puzzle it out.]_

Tony smiled. “I’m sure you will. Jay? I’m hereby granting Loki Amazon privileges.”

“Very well, sir,” Jarvis said.

One look at Loki’s confused face was enough to make Tony chortle. “It’s like a marketplace, but virtual. They have books, but all sorts of physical items too, electronics, clothes, home appliances, toys… Pretty much anything that can be delivered in a package, they’ll sell. If you’re unsure about anything, just ask Jarvis, he will help you find whatever you need. Well, within reason.”

_[Thank you.]_

“And hey, I’ve used the computer a couple of times, so no peeking into the browser history, okay?” Tony said with a grin. Loki’s stare was completely blank. “That you will _definitely_ figure out, sooner or later.”

Loki crooked his head and narrowed his eyes but didn’t comment.

“Shall we?”

_[Yes.]_

Tony clamped the vises shut, swallowed the stupid joke that threatened to spill from his lips, and left the room.

\---

They had barely started by the time Jarvis tuned in with a warning.

“I’m sorry to interrupt, sir, but there’s an unknown aircraft requesting docking privileges on the rooftop.”

“Unknown how?”

“The broadcast ID is most likely duped and there’s no homing signal.”

“What’s the ID?”

“’Mommy’s very angry’, sir”

“That’s Romanoff! Let her in,” he said with a chuckle, then enabled the intercom. “Hey, heard that? Cavalry is here.”

Loki looked up from the screen, crooked his head and raised an eyebrow. Either he could see through the reflective layers on the glass – designed to shield equipment in the control room from low level radiation in the main area – or he just guessed correctly where Tony was.

“Romanoff! Any idea why she’s here? We were supposed to meet up back at the house.”

Loki shook his head fervently but the look on his face couldn’t be classified as other than “guilty”. Tony smirked. As far as he knew, it was the first time since they had broken him out that Loki was trying to bullshit any of them. It was a feeble attempt, but it was an attempt nonetheless and it might mean he was coming back together, despite all odds. Baby steps, Bruce had said.

 _We’re making nothing but leaps, in both directions,_ Tony thought, but got no chance to bring it to conclusion.

“Stark!” Romanoff’s voice roared from the speakers. “Where’s Loki?!”

“I’m sorry, sir, Miss Romanoff forced me to transmit it to you, using your own override code,” Jarvis said immediately after her words sounded, and Tony only briefly wondered how exactly _that_ could happen. He must’ve let it slip somewhere around her.

“Tell her we are in the workshop. Unharmed. I would love it to stay that way, so show her in, before she’s threatening to rip your hard drive out of your server room.”

“That wasn’t the exact wording Miss Romanoff used, but the meaning was not far-off. And sir, Loki is asking what is happening.”

Indeed, on the other side of the glass Loki’s hands were up in the air, his eyebrows raised questioningly. Tony sighed, turned off the machine and went into the main room.

“We are putting things on a pause, because – from what I can tell – all hell’s gonna break loose in… Where’s she, Jay?”

“Sixty-fifth floor, sir.”

“About thirty seconds.”

He was almost done releasing the clamps when the door flew open and Romanoff rushed in. Her eyes glided back and forth between Loki and Tony a couple of times, making sure they were indeed okay, before she decided Tony was to blame, because of course she did.

“Why the fuck aren’t you answering my calls?”

“I left the phone upstairs. There’s no signal here anyway because the room is shielded.”

“For the whole day?!”

“Can you at least tell me what exactly I am being yelled at for, first?”

“Loki sent me a message that, to quote, _Barton is here_ and then none of you dunderheads is answering my goddamned messages. For hours!”

“And it’s my fault? Besides, it’s fine. We had a friendly talk, Barton is chill with Loki now, all is hunky-dory.”

That seemed to knock her out of her rage. “Uhm, what?”

“In short? I forgot to rearm the door after I deactivated the lockdown procedure, Barton came up to check what’s happening, found Loki in the living room, Loki gave him an abridged version of the events, Clint listened, we’re all cuddly and friendly again.”

She blinked and her eyes fell on Loki.

 _[There’s some nuance there, but it is, in essence, what happened,]_ the god said with what could pass as an adequate poker face.

“I can’t believe you two,” she snarled, but most of the tension was gone now. “Is Clint here, now?” she asked, after a moment of consideration.

“Jay?”

“No, sir. Mr. Barton left at two-thirty pm, leaving no indication when he’ll arrive back.”

“Can you tell him to come up when he’s back?” she asked.

“Will do, Miss Romanoff.”

“Thanks,” she said, turned back to Tony and pointed an accusatory finger at the shackles. “Why the hell are those still on? You told me you know how to break the lock.”

“We would’ve been done hours ago if people weren’t _interrupting_ us all the time,” he said with a sneer. “Can we proceed now or is there anything else you want to scream at my face?”

“I don’t know why you even stopped.”

“Because I knew you’d barge in here like you owned the place and I don’t need a fleshy antenna fucking up my supersonic waves.”

Her eyes dashed to Loki.

“Unlike you, Shawshank Redemption has no choice but to be here and I took all the precautions I could to accommodate that. You – out,” he said, and pointed at the door. “Go swim in my pool or something. You seemed to enjoy it last time. Or there’s quite a bit of tableware for you to smash if you feel like it again.”

“The room at the back is safe?”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll be there then,” she said and circled around the workbench, her fingers brushing Loki’s hand as she did.

Tony sighed in resignation. There was no point arguing. He reached to reattach the clamps.

Loki was quicker. _[Go,]_ he said. He was anxious to have it done and it was obvious.

“Sure thing. Sit tight,” he said, chuckled at the glare Loki sent his way and went to join Romanoff in the back room.

He made the required small adjustments then turned on the emitter.

“So, how’s the mission?” he asked.

“A bust. They were gone when I got here, for a couple of days at least. I found like one hard drive that wasn’t smashed to bits. The computer it was in, was in a far corner of the IT office, so it’s probably scrap as well. No documents, no powerful artefacts from outer space either.”

“Eh, it was worth a try. At least you did _something_ while I’ve been running in…”

“Hey, what’s going on?” she exclaimed and sprung up. On the other side of the glass Loki was no longer lounging peacefully. He sat, hunched over, his elbows on his knees, his palms pushed to his ears. “Turn it off!” she yelled and reached for the emergency switch.

Tony stopped her hand. He enabled the intercom again. “What’s happening?”

Loki slowly lowered his hands and opened his eyes _. [The noise. But I can take it. Carry on.]_

“Noise?” Tony asked, surprised.

_[You can’t hear it?]_

“Loki’s hearing range is different from ours,” Romanoff said. “He must be hearing your waves.”

 _Ugh, that must suck, big time._ “You want me to stop?”

_[No.]_

“I can get you sound-canceling headphones,” Tony offered. “I’m not sure how well they would work, as they are usually not designed for…”

Loki shook his head.

“You sure?”

 _[Yes.]_ There was an angry flair to the god’s gestures now and Tony decided not to push it any further.

“Let me know if…”

_[I will.]_

Romanoff’s slanted eyes were focused on Loki. “Can you make it go faster?”

“Not by much. If we go too quickly, we might miss the perfect spot and would have to go through the whole process again, but switching it up ten percent should still…”

“Do it.”

Tony did.

Then they sat there, watching Loki bodily fight the urge to yank away, with his forehead pressed to his knees and his arms wrapped around his head, until there was a loud pop and the shackle on the god’s left ankle shifted under the pressure of the vise. Tony turned off the emitter. Loki straightened and undid the clamp and – just as he did – the manacle fell to the table, now in two pieces. 

“Okay, now you only need to go through all that one more time,” Tony said gloomily and restarted the machine.

\---

Loki didn’t even notice the moment the second shackle gave way, too preoccupied with holding on to his sanity as the high-pitched shriek pierced the thoughts in his brain and turned them inside-out. His aberrant nature found yet another way to torment him, it seems.

Then the noise cut off suddenly, the door flung open and Natasha’s arms were around his shoulders and her whispers were like balm on the fresh wound of his mind.

“You did great,” she said again as she pulled away and Loki fought the desire to hold on to her, just for a moment longer.

_[I didn’t do anything.]_

She smiled as she undid the clamp and took the manacle off.

He swung his legs over the edge and sat up. Only now that the fetters were gone, he realized how heavy they really were.

Stark entered and grabbed the shackles, now abandoned on the pedestal.

“Are those still cursed?” he asked. His expression was drawn, calculating. His mind was probably already swarming with ideas what to do with the now harmless clump of rare metal in his hand.

 _[No,]_ Loki said. _[This is the downside to spells like this one. It can hold on for a long time, even forever if cast with sufficient proficiency, but the strength stems from the link it creates between the item and the wearer. It will crumble and break away the moment the physical contact is interrupted. Or the wearer dies.]_

Stark nodded. “You mind if I…”

_[No. Go on. I’m sure you’ll find a better use for it.]_

“I might actually have a thing or two in mind,” Stark said with a smirk.

That Loki didn’t doubt.

Stark tossed the cuffs back on the table carelessly. “Now, can we go back upstairs? We’ve been here for hours and I’m…” He gave Loki a sideways glance. “Tired,” he finished, thinly.

Loki sighed. Stark must think him truly frail if he’s convinced Loki can’t take even a _mention_ of food.

Stark and Natasha went for the lift and Loki followed, even though he wouldn’t mind taking the stairs. Every step was a thrill now, reminding him of his newfound freedom, and he itched to just run upstairs. Just because he could.

“Jarvis, did anyone else, who can potentially raid my home, call when I was in the workshop?” Stark asked when the doors of the tiny box closed behind them. Loki hated elevators with a passion. Even if they were not going down.

“Let me check the registry, sir” said Jarvis. “There are seventeen unanswered calls, sir, fifteen from Miss Romanoff, one from Miss Potts and one from Director Fury of SHIELD.”

Stark and Natasha exchanged concerned glances then both looked at Loki and Loki could almost hear the door – the one that just got opened a sliver wider – shut close with a dull thud.

\---

Stark decided to return the call from the living room, checking the camera angles beforehand and ensuring that Natasha and Loki were not visible in the frame from where they were sitting.

The screen was dark for a while before the signal went through and Fury’s face appeared. Loki barely held back a flinch, the sight bringing all sorts of unwanted memories.

“This is not the best time, Stark,” Fury said in a clipped tone. He was driving and his eyes were not at the camera. “What do you want?”

“What do _I_ want? _You_ were the one to call _me_.”

Something that sounded suspiciously like a gunshot sounded in the background.

“Is something going on?” Stark asked.

There was a sound of torn metal, the camera shook, and Fury snarled a nasty curse. He yanked the steering wheel sharply, there was a screech of tires and a flash filled the screen for a couple of heartbeats. “Nah, just a couple of punks trying to ram me off the road,” Fury said. “I think I…” A bang and some more shaking. “Motherfu…” The video flipped and the screen went dark.

“Mhm,” Stark hummed. “This really might not be the best time.”

There were some more crashes and bangs, then a rustle and Fury’s face reappeared on the screen. His nose was swelling quickly, and it looked like it just got broken. “You still there, Stark?” he asked and wiped the blood pouring into his eye from the cut on his brow ridge.

“Yeah. Are you all right?” Stark asked with a cursory amount of concern in his voice.

“Better than the other guy,” Fury snarled and there was a sound of glass breaking and crunching, as Fury heaved himself out from the crashed car. “How ‘bout you?”

“Uhm…”

“A very curious report came under my attention today. Something about some very important asset being stolen from one of Pierce’s secret playgrounds in Europe. You happen to know anything about that?”

“Nope,” Stark said without missing a beat, smiling pleasantly.

“Mmm, I figured you wouldn’t.” Fury pushed the camera further and squinted, then readjusted the eye patch. In the background, two wrecks smoked in the middle of some backwoods road.

“You need a lift?”

“No. But I’m gonna get some time off,” Fury said flippantly. Then his face turned hard. “Listen. If you happen to stumble upon Pierce’s missing goods…” He sighed and rubbed his eye again. “Keep him safe. Don’t let Pierce or any of his people anywhere nearby.”

“I won’t,” Stark promised.

“Good.” Fury looked into the eye of the camera a moment longer with an undecided expression. “See you around, Stark.”

The call dropped.

“Okay, can someone explain what just happened?” Stark said with a frown.

“I suppose we just found out that even being Fury doesn’t help you when you step on the wrong foot by asking nosy questions,” Natasha said. “And that he is not Hydra, after all.”

Stark let out an exasperated breath. “I’m going to call Pepper now, if you two don’t mind,” he sighed and left the room.

Natasha moved from the armchair to sit next to Loki on the couch, her hand on his shoulder. “How are you feeling?”

Loki pulled up and crossed his legs, then dragged his fingers over the sensitive flesh of his ankle where the shackle had gnawed away his skin.

_[Better.]_

She smiled and reached to neaten the top button of his shirt and her hair smelled of smoke and pine forests and frost.

\---

“Miss Romanoff, Mr. Barton has returned, and I asked him to come to the penthouse. He is coming up as I speak.”

Natasha sprung up from where she was nodding off - curled up at Loki’s side - and adjusted her clothes. Loki remained where he sat, unsure what to do with himself. He didn’t want to interfere but leaving without a word felt improper.

The lift signaled Barton’s arrival with a ding, the doors slid open and he stepped out.

“Tony! I might have gotten another of your cars hauled. Sorry!” he yelled.

“Hi, Clint,” said Natasha.

He froze, just for a heartbeat. “Hi,” he said and walked towards her. “Long time no see.”

“Yep.”

“How are you?”

“Living the life, as you can see,” she said with a smile.

Clint stopped two steps away. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I should have listened to you. I shouldn’t…”

She threw her arms around him.

Loki looked away, got up and quietly slunk to his room.

\---

The lamps were off, but the city lights from beyond the windows were enough to disperse the dark.

Stark fulfilled his promise and freed Loki from his bonds. There was nothing more left to wait for. This is his happy ending, the only one he would get. He should enjoy it, for as long as he could, because the only thing fate still got in store for him is the Æsir justice. And that only if Asgard remembers about him before Thanos’ children come looking again.

_Here it is. What’s left of your life – at the mercy of mortals, having to depend on Natasha and Stark for everything: protection, food, a place to sleep, even clothes on your back. Look how great your existence has turned out, your highness._

And now Natasha had Clint again and she didn’t need…

Loki closed his eyes, embarrassment burning his cheeks.

He was always too greedy. For power, for influence. For respect.

For affection.

Natasha already gave up everything for him. Her old life, her friends, her family. She almost died for him, not once, not twice, but thrice. Each time she lay her life on the scales just as willingly. And now Loki had the audacity to feel envy, because she got a sliver of her old life back.

He rubbed his eyes, then dragged his fingers down, until they rested on the metal. The spell burned in his throat in warning, but it was but a shadow, its claws filed down by Stark’s device.

He pulled the semi-circle free and turned it in his fingers for a while. He carefully put it away, pushed his fingernails under the plates on his jaw and yanked, until familiar pain wiped his mind free of all doubt.

\---

“Hey, are you all right? What happened?”

Loki blinked and pulled himself up. _[I fell asleep.]_

“On the floor? Okay, I shouldn’t really be the one to judge _that_ …” she said, then her eyes landed on the scrambler. “That’s the gizmo Stark made for you?”

He nodded.

“Why is it off?”

He wanted so much to just lie to her. To tell her it slipped off and it was an honest mistake. To spare her having to witness his shame, yet again. _[I removed it,]_ he said instead.

“Why?” There was concern in her voice and it made the guilt burn all that brighter.

He shrugged.

“Loki? Look at me, please,” she said, quietly.

He did.

Her fingers stroked the side of his neck and the dried blood there. Her lips pulled into a thin line and her eyes grew shiny. “Loki…”

_[Why are you here?]_

She blinked a couple of times. “What? Where else should I be?”

_[With Barton.]_

Her eyes went wide, and she looked at him with incredulity. “You can be such a clueless idiot, sometimes,” she said. Her tone was light but there was a sad note to it. “Clint is an old friend and it’s been great to catch up with him, but… Him being here doesn’t change anything between us.”

Loki stared at her.

“I mean it.”

He didn’t answer. He didn’t even know what the answer should be.

Her hand left his shoulder and slowly came to rest on his cheek, dousing the flame burning in his chest and calming the tempest raging in his mind, leaving only the remorse for letting her down. Again.

 _[I’m sorry,]_ he said and reached for Stark’s scrambler. She held his hair out of the way, and he clipped the device back into place. There was a solemn resolution behind the motion. He would never take it off, ever again.

Natasha helped him up to his feet then sat down on the edge of the bed.

“I can go if you want to rest,” she said. “There’s like a million rooms in the tower and I’m sure Stark wouldn’t care, no matter which one I use. But… I can stay if you want me to. We can watch a movie or something. That would be a first, right?” A thin smile pulled the edges of her lips up.

He looked at her, somehow unable to find the right words. The smile slowly died down and she moved to get up.

 _[No. Stay,]_ he said. _[Please.]_

The smile was back. “Which side of the bed do you prefer?”

_[I don’t know. I never had to share.]_

“I hope it’s the right then,” she said and started on the way to the bathroom, pulling off her shirt as she went. “Boy, Clint wasn’t joking. The bath really has the best view!”

\---

Tony stayed in the living room, sipping his third drink of the night. Or was it the fourth?

He was used to spending his evenings alone. The tower was always deserted at this time of night. Clint might be living just a couple floors below, but he rarely even acknowledged Tony’s presence and wouldn’t visit the penthouse unless directly invited. And, even if Pepper was in town, her activity cycle capped at like eleven pm. That was just early afternoon for Tony, with his don’t-wake-me-up-before-noon-unless-it’s-a-real-crisis attitude. He would just spend hours at tinkering in his workshop or – if he felt extraordinarily lazy, like right now – at sitting with a bottle of scotch and pondering on new ideas or ways to improve existing designs. Or just staring out of the window.

He couldn’t tell why the tower felt empty right now. He should be glad he had a moment for himself, with everyone gone to bed. Yet he found himself missing the company. Bruce’s unobtrusive presence, Romanoff’s brash manner, even Loki’s meaningful silences, with moments of brilliance shining through.

“Jay, did Loki use his Amazon privilege?”

“Yes, sir, he did.”

“What… No, don’t spoil the big reveal, I want to see for myself.”

He wasn’t worried or anything. Jarvis wouldn’t allow Loki to order something truly dangerous and Tony was rather sure Loki wouldn’t do it anyway, but he wouldn’t put some prank past him either, something to rival Rhodey’s six tons of packing peanuts and a bouncy castle back from their MIT days maybe.

So, in short, Tony was just curious.

He shook his head at the memory and grabbed his laptop. He looked at the purchase history and immediately felt a compelling need to put his head though the half-inch thick pane of glass before him. Because on the list, as the only item on it, sat something that none of the three perfectly adjusted adults in the house never even thought Loki might need. A pair of fucking shoes.

\---

“Miss Romanoff, Loki,” Jarvis’ voice sounded from the ceiling, waking her up. “Mr. Barton is in the living room and requests your presence immediately. He appears agitated.”

Loki shifted next to her and she turned just in time to see him open his eyes. They were aquamarine today. She touched the tip of his nose lightly. “You heard? It sounds like something important.”

_[Do we have to go?]_

“We can wait for him to find us and drag us out of the bed, but I can tell you right now it’s not going to be pleasant.”

Loki huffed out a laugh and climbed out of the bed.

\---

When they got to the living room, Stark was already up and very unhappy with that fact.

“What’s up, Clint?” she asked.

It wasn’t Clint who answered, it was Stark. He turned the laptop he was staring at, showing them the headline on the screen. “Fury’s dead,” he said.


	52. Lucky

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there are setbacks, most of which could be prevented.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapter got (over and over, because I'm clumsy) reviewed by the irreplaceable Spacefloosie (you know what? I'm not even gonna ask anymore about the tagging thingie, let's assume it's a lost cause and move on).

“Dead?” Natasha said in an empty voice. “What do you mean?” Fury always seemed to her like one of those people who could survive anything. Like a statue made of brass. Or a cockroach.

“Are there alternative meanings of the word I’m not aware of?” Stark sneered and returned to the article on his screen. “Great loss, yadda, yadda, car accident on route one-sixty-eight near Fresno, California, five-hour long procedure, sustained injuries… Oh, here it is, ‘no foul play suspected.’”

“Mhm,” Natasha murmured. “Do they mean the same car crash we saw him walk away from with just a couple of scratches?”

Stark shrugged. “That or Fury’s just the most reckless driver in the universe. Even I didn’t get into two accidents in the same day. And I drove one hundred fifty on that road before. You’d have to be _completely_ blind to crash there, it runs straight for miles...”

“That’s beyond the point,” Clint interjected. “We all know it wasn’t an accident.”

“What do the SHIELD internal comms say?” Natasha asked.

“It’s all chaos, for now. The new director hasn’t been appointed yet, most are not even sure whose jurisdiction that is,” Clint said, “since Fury’s been in position before the Council took control and it wasn’t tenure-based…”

“It should be Ellis, if SHIELD is still a government agency, but the definition’s not that clear anymore,” Stark said and tapped away on his keyboard, then narrowed his eyes. “Well, if the internal circular letter I just found is telling the truth, the decisive body responsible for appointing the new director would be… Yep, the current Secretary of the World Security Council.”

Clint cursed.

“Pierce,” Natasha groaned. “Of course, it had to be him.”

“It looks like SHIELD is getting a new _direction_ then, along with their new director, today. There’s been an assembly call for later today, coming out of the Council, the contents are encoded, but it’s not hard to guess what it is for,” Stark judged. “I really hoped we will have more time to deal with…” He looked at Loki. “Stuff.”

Loki shifted where he sat, and she placed her hand on his knee.

“Okay,” Clint said and started pacing. He was trying very hard not to look in her direction in general and at her hand on Loki’s leg in particular. Their talk from the previous evening went well, all things considered, but he still needed time to process it. “So, what’s the plan?”

Stark shrugged without looking up from his monitor. “The same as it ever was. The part where I go to Fury and wriggle myself into their super-secret Helicarrier project obviously flies straight to the trash though.”

“This is ridiculous,” Clint judged. “How can we tell which agency is compromised and which is not? We know the Council is in, so is SHIELD, and all the way in now, with some lapdog of Pierce’s instead of Fury at the steering wheel. Who else?”

“DHS,” Stark supplied. “CIA, most likely, for how much their interest is intertwined with the Council. I would be surprised if the Department of Defense were completely clean, too.”

“So, what, you want to go to go down the list of the agencies and just blindly pick one that might be out of it?”

Stark’s keyboard clanked. “Department of Agriculture seems pretty harmless,” he said.

“You’d be surprised,” Natasha uttered under her breath, then added, louder, “Besides, that’s not what Stark meant when he said we are going public.”

Barton stopped, leaned against the bar, and folded his arms. “No?”

“Nope. We are dumping it all online,” Stark announced. “Every single piece of data, for all to see, on multiple servers at once. There’s no way to sweep _that_ under the rug.”

“What!?” Clint leapt and was now hovering above Stark, his finger inches from Stark’s chest. “Do you have any idea what that means?! For me, for Nat, hell, for every goddamned SHIELD agent that ever worked in the field!”

Stark flashed a crafty smile and rolled his shoulders carelessly. “Chill, Robin. It wasn’t even my idea.”

“No? Then whose?”

“Mine,” Natasha said.

There was a moment of silence.

Clint turned to her with a frown. “Don’t you know what that…”

“I know exactly what that means, Clint. I just don’t care.”

“You won’t be able to ever go back into the field.”

“I don’t care,” she repeated. “I’m done. And this has to stop. They are _hurting people_ , Clint. You expect me to care less about that and more about some shitty job?”

He sighed. “What about me? What about Laura? What about my kids, Nat? How are they to blame for what Hydra is doing? It’s all in the files, Nat! Hell, what about thousands of people in the witness protection program? Are they responsible for what Pierce and his piece of thrash of a party did to your _date_?!” He snarled the last word like a curse and his eyes were narrowed to slits.

Loki’s eyes were firmly on Clint, his brows furrowed, but his hands stayed in his lap. Her fingers squeezed his thigh, in (what she hoped was) reassurance.

“It’s not about Loki, Clint,” she said.

“No? Then why is he here and all the people you claim to _care so much_ about are still in some Nazi prison camp?”

“Barton…” Stark said. “Be reasonable.”

“I’m being _very_ reasonable! You’re the ones who can’t take the truth!” He turned back to Stark. “You have your ivory tower to sit in and enough money to last you five lifetimes, even if your company goes down the drain. Which it would not, because your legion of lawyers will keep you out of it, cleanly. You have nothing to lose!”

“Don’t tell me what I can and cannot lose, Barton,” Stark said. His voice was calm and even, but his tone carried a distinct warning.

Clint rolled his eyes. “Fine! You want to ruin it all? Be my guests, but I’m out. I’m not going to stand inside the building when it comes down!” He started towards the elevator bank.

“Excuse my interruption, Mr. Stark,” Jarvis’ voice sounded from the speakers, “but I have just blocked two breach attempts on your security network access point. I have also allowed myself to connect to SHIELD’s server array that was the source and there seems to be a strike team bound for the Tower.”

“How long?” Stark asked.

“Approximately fifteen minutes, sir.”

“We leave in ten.” He sprung up and started towards the workshop. “Full lockdown, just after we’re gone, Jay.”

Jarvis said his confirmations and Natasha scrambled to her feet. “Go grab our stuff,” she told Loki, needlessly, because he was already halfway up himself. He still nodded and headed to their room.

Clint’s hand on Stark’s arm stopped him in his steps. “Wait! Why leave? This could be the chance; they will lose all credibility by attacking you in your home!”

“Look around!” Stark snarled with a broad gesture. “What happens if they find the alien who attacked New York and a wanted ex-assassin in my living room while we still have zero concrete proof to show up for? You think we can spin _that_ to our advantage?”

“Where are you going then?”

“Back to Bruce’s.”

“I’m going with you,” Clint exclaimed.

“No,” Stark said sternly, then balked under Clint’s adamant glower. “Think about it. We are already burned, but you’re not. There’s no point in throwing that away.”

“What do you want me to do then?”

“Go to DC,” Natasha said, stepping closer. “Be our guy on the inside. Lurk around. See what you can find out.”

Clint nodded an agreement “I’m gonna need another one of your cars then,” he said.

“Wait them out in the server room in the basement and take the Quinjet. There’s no way we’re flying it out of here right now. Maybe you can lure them away.”

He nodded again. “Uhm, Tony? I’m not exactly liquid on cash right now, so…”

Stark grunted. “Wait here.”

“So, you and Loki, huh?” Clint said casually when they were alone in the hallway. He wasn’t looking at her and stashed his hands in his pockets. “I wouldn’t peg him as your type.”

“I don’t have a type.”

“You do,” Clint chortled. “So?”

“I… I don’t know. Maybe? Maybe after all this blows over and we’re both alive at the end something might come out of it. But as it stands?” she said quietly. “I just… don’t know. I don’t think Loki knows, either. And the last thing I want, is to put the pressure of figuring _that_ out on him right now.”

“He seems like a nice guy,” Clint said and almost kept a straight face. Almost.

“You’re pushing it, Clint” she warned but couldn’t help the small smile that crept up to her lips.

“Ten minutes,” Jarvis warned. “I recalled two elevators to your floor and blocked them for your use only.”

Clint sighed and didn’t say anything more until Stark returned.

He handed Clint a credit card and a phone. “The card is prepaid for two hundred k; hit me up if you need more. The phone has my number in it. The connection should be secure.”

Clint nodded and took a deep breath. The elevator arrived. He bumped Natasha’s arm with his fist. “See you around, I guess.”

She pulled him into a hug. “It’s not over till it is,” she breathed into his shoulder.

He huffed out a laugh right into her ear. “I don’t know how I lived without your pep talks.”

He pulled away, went into the elevator, and pushed the basement button. He saluted them, just as the door slid close. Stark stood by her side, silent and thoughtful, for a change.

Natasha sighed. “You’re not taking anything?”

He patted the small bag he had slung over his shoulder. “I have everything I need here, and the armor is reassembling after I modified it. How about you?”

“I travel light these days.”

Stark was wearing his cocky smirk, but he was anxious, and it showed. She should say something, she thought. But there was nothing left to say, and she was so done with talking instead of acting. They both knew what they were dealing with here. Loki knew too; he might not have said anything, but she was sure he listened to every single word and filed it accordingly.

Loki returned, carrying a small, plaid suitcase. He put on a long coat with a hood and had a scarf wrapped around his neck, but he was still barefoot. She pursed her lips and Stark cringed, violently.

“Uhm… I assume there’s a story here?” she said carefully.

Stark waved his hand for “later”. Yep, definitely a story. 

“Five minutes,” Jarvis prompted, but Stark didn’t move.

“We’re waiting for something?” she asked.

Stark put his index finger up and held it like that for a couple of seconds. There was a rumble and armor pieces flew into the room and arranged into a neat package at Stark’s feet. He grabbed it by the handle and dragged it into the elevator. “No, let’s go.”

They rode down in silence, the numbers counting down rapidly. There was a certain stillness in the air, the one that comes before the battle, like a calm before the storm, but she bit down the comment about it. It was just an illusion. They would make it out without a fight. They would be long gone before SHIELD got there.

Stark led them down the aisle, towards the old Volvo.

“Really? You want to use the same car?”

“You think we’ll make it out in any of those shiny things with my name on it?” Stark said and heaved his armor into the trunk. Loki helped him, put his bag in too, then closed the hatch.

 _[May I drive?]_ Loki asked.

“Uhm, what?” she mumbled.

“Yeah, sure,” Stark said with a roll of his shoulders and headed for the passenger’s side.

“Wait, what?!”

“Get in, Romanoff, we’ll explain later,” Stark said nonchalantly. “I call shotgun!”

\---

They made it two crossroads from Stark’s tower before a column of black vehicles passed them on the opposite lane, without slowing down.

“SHIELD’s SUVs,” Stark remarked.

“Just the backup, meant to keep us inside. The main force will land on the roof, if they haven’t already,” Natasha said.

Stark cranked his neck and looked out of the window. Loki kept his eyes on the road. His hood was safely up, but he adjusted the scarf that was threatening to slip down. If any of the mortals in the vehicles around recognized him, or even just took a good look at the metal sealed to his face, it could mean trouble.

The system of easy-to-read signals within the city made following the ridiculously complicated set of regulations humans thought up for moving their cars around a bit simpler. But there were also a lot more vehicles and Stark was adamant that veering around them was not the proper way to do it, even if there was an opening. That seemed like even less advisable now, when they had to keep attention away from themselves. So, when the lights changed to red, he stopped at the intersection.

“Okay, when did you learn to drive?” Natasha asked.

Loki turned, so she could see his hands from the back seat.

 _[Yesterday,]_ he said. He had experience in operating various vehicles before, but it was safe to assume she meant mortal automobiles, not similar machines in general.

“Mhm,” she murmured. “Stark?”

“Yesterday _morning_ , if it makes it easier to swallow,” Stark chuckled.

Natasha let out a breath. Loki turned back to the road and watched in the rear-view mirror as she sat back and faced the window. “It’s safer than if Stark were driving,” she judged. Stark scoffed, feigning offense. “You’re doing great, by the way.”

Loki nodded in acknowledgement. It wasn’t any sort of achievement to be proud of, yet the praise still tickled pleasantly, no matter how undeserved it felt. He was fully aware he was but a burden now, for both Natasha and Stark. He didn’t know enough about the intricacies of Midgardian politics to offer any input or advice on the obstacles they were facing and would be useless in a fight, once it came to that. This was at least something he still _could_ do, then lie to himself that he was being helpful.

“Am I not going to get any credit here?” Stark demanded, halfheartedly. It seemed like one of those things the human tended to say when he meant something completely opposite. “Turn right at the next lights. East River Drive should be passable at this hour.”

Loki pointed at the sign with a crossed-out, right-facing arrow, which was rather easy to interpret.

Natasha snorted and Stark rolled his eyes. “The next one then,” he said, “Jesus, do I really need to tell you _everything_?”

\---

They drove away, undisturbed, and – after they left the city proper. and got on the freeway in Union Port – she allowed herself to relax a little. They got away. For now.

Stark went on at length about the modifications he made to his armor, apparently unable to take the silence for more than five minutes straight. She filtered him out and turned to the news feeds she opened on her phone. The net was buzzing with theories about Director’s Fury demise, but it was most just idle banter with a side of conspiracy theories. Well, wrong kind of conspiracy theories.

“Pierce’s going to give a public statement at six,” she said and read out the post from Council’s official twitter account. “Then there will be a press conference.”

“Do we know what he will be talking about?”

“It only says here he is to address the current situation, but my bet is they are going to officially announce the next director of SHIELD.”

“Yeah,” Stark agreed. “Any news from Clint?”

“No and I don’t want reach out to him. If he is going through a screening right now it would only make things worse. He will make the contact once he is in the clear and has anything useful for us.”

Stark hummed in agreement.

“Also, we got far enough from the city, we should leave the interstate,” she said.

“Why?” Stark asked with a frown. He might be the smartest guy in the room, but he lacked experience in covert operations, and it showed.

“Too many traffic cameras, too many patrols. They will find out, sooner or later, what our mode of transportation is, and we are making it too easy for them to recreate our route and follow it straight to our doorstep. If we don’t want to switch cars, we should at least avoid main roads.”

Stark turned to Loki. “Heard the lady?”

Loki nodded, then pointed at the fuel gauge, with the reserve zone warning already lit up.

“Yeah, that too. How far to the next exit?”

 _[Six miles,]_ Loki’s hand spelled.

“Great. Take it.”

\---

“You want to swap?” Natasha asked Loki when Stark went to pay. He was the more recognizable one of the two of them, but also not an officially wanted criminal, so even if the risk of someone knowing his face was higher, the chance it would end in a nine-one-one call was lower.

Loki shook his head. _[It’s…]_ His brows furrowed. _[Enjoyable,]_ he said. _[It gives me something to focus on.]_ He really didn’t need to specify what it was that the activity took his mind off.

“Wait till you get the chance to try out the fancy ones,” she said with a smile. “Just let us know when you’re tired, okay?”

 _[I will,]_ Loki said, and his expression made her sure that he wouldn’t.

She knew he had learned to trust her – and even Stark and Banner, to some extent – but that was the line even the trusting version of Loki wouldn’t cross. So, she just rested her hand on his shoulder and reveled in the way he slowly relaxed under her touch.

The door of the gas station building opened and Stark rushed out. He wasn’t running, not exactly, but his steps were hurried and tense. Loki started the engine.

“Go!” Stark barked as he got in, before even closing the door fully.

The tires spun and the car rolled on.

“What happened?”

“The nosy chick at the register recognized me.”

“So what? We talked about it. No one calls the police because they _think_ they saw Tony Stark at the gas station.”

“I haven’t finished yet, have I? She checked the camera and she started to act weirdly, asking me if I’m okay and if I need assistance.”

“She thought this is a kidnapping scenario,” Natasha said, numbly. Hell, they could’ve anticipated that. Stark acted jittery and the events took their toll on him physically as well – his goatee was now a full-on beard, there were bags under his eyes from too little sleep and too much caffeine and he was still wearing his workshop clothes. Then the first thing that girl saw on the feed was a masked, hooded person sitting in a banged-up car, waiting for Stark to come back. “Damn.”

“I should be mad, but to be honest, that’s a proper civic attitude,” Stark said with an unhappy smile. “Which doesn’t mean a goddamned thing if we get cops on our asses.”

“We need to swap cars,” she said.

Stark let out a low, annoyed whine.

“What?”

“Bruce really _loves_ this car.”

“Well, I hope he values our lives more, ‘cause we are sooo abandoning it.” She pulled out her phone and checked the map. “There’s a mall half a mile ahead. There should be something on the parking lot that we can use.”

“What do you intend to do?”

“I intend to steal us a new ride, what else did you think was going to happen?”

Stark hummed out something non-committal. He didn’t seem that big on the idea.

“You can send the owner a gift card or something if you’re alive once this is over.”

“Okay, fine,” he grunted.

\---

She got them an old Land Rover Freelander. The owner was just parking it as she got there, so it gave them at least half an hour before the disappearance was noticed.

“If you had to steal, couldn’t you take something fancier?” Stark complained, but still got in without making a fuss.

“Something fancier would be way too easy to notice,” she said and got of the car. “You have a lot to learn about spy work. You still want to drive?” she asked Loki.

Loki nodded.

“I don’t want to be a spy. I want to return to being the billionaire playboy, like, right now,” Stark complained with a pout. He wasn’t entirely serious, that was a given, but it was clear the situation wasn’t doing anything good for his sanity. It wasn’t something he could solve by flying in in his armor and blowing bad guys to bits and he seemed to lack proper mental tools to deal with that, for now at least.

Loki studied the automatic transmission gear selector for a moment. He tried the R setting first, then, when that didn’t work as he intended, went to D and the car moved forth, just to stop a few feet further, as Loki tested the brakes _. [I liked the old one better,]_ he decided and the wide, prideful grin on Stark’s face made Natasha chuckle.

\---

“Turn on the radio, Stark,” she said. “Pierce’s address has just started, maybe some station is airing it?”

Stark did, going through a couple of stations, before landing on some news broadcast.

The tires screeched and the car veered to the side of the road, stopping with a jolt. Loki opened the door and stumbled out, then fell to his knees, his arms pressed to his ears.

“Turn it off,” she snarled and jumped out.

Loki’s hands were now over his face. He was taking in torn, ragged gasps.

“Hey,” she said softly, kneeling next to him, her hands on his arms. “I’m here.”

He shuddered and a silent sob rocked his body. His arms dropped and he huddled his face into her shoulder, his hands around her waist. She pulled him closer and stroked his back soothingly. “It’s all right,” she whispered. “No one here will hurt you.”

His breathing slowly returned to normal and the shivers that ran through his frame subsided. He pulled away and looked up at her.

She ran her thumbs under his eyes. “What happened?” she asked.

He took in a long breath. _[That voice…]_ he showed, and his gestures were terse and frantic. _[I will always recognize it. He was down there. He ordered them to do… things to me. He put the shackles on, forced the kid to enchant them...]_

“I’m so sorry,” she murmured and hugged him again.

“Guys!” Stark’s voice came, alarmed. “I don’t mean to interrupt, but we have a situation!”

Just as Stark finished talking multiple sets of wheels screeched on the gravel. Three unmarked SUVs pulled over, one in front, one behind and one blocking the car from the side of the road, surrendering them.

Men in suits spilled out, at least two from every vehicle, guns in their hands, but aimed at the sky, for now. Loki’s hand closed around her arm and he pulled her behind the car door. She yanked her gun free.

“Here,” she said, handing it to Loki. She didn’t have a spare, but he had better aim anyway.

He shook his head and a blade gleamed in his hand.

“You’re surrounded,” one of the agents yelled. “Get out with your hands in the air now and we will make sure you’re treated fairly!”

“Yeah, right!” came from inside of the car. The vehicle rocked behind her. Stark was trying to get his armor from the trunk. Good thing she didn’t steal them a sedan. “That would work immensely better if I didn’t see how your _fair treatment_ looks like.”

“We don’t need anything from you, Stark,” another agent said. They were taking positions, getting ready for the fight. “Or from you, agent Romanoff. Hand over our prisoner and you’ll be allowed to leave.”

“That’s funny!” Stark yelled back, his voice strained. The car rocked again. “You make it sound like…”

There was a gunshot and the rear window shattered.

“Stand down! Step away from the vehicle!”

“Fuck that,” Stark snarled and there was a blast. Someone shouted and there were footsteps, on all sides, then one more gunshot. She leaned out and fired, getting one of the agents in the shoulder.

Loki leapt, then rolled to avoid a bullet. In milliseconds, he was at the closest agent. The man swung his weapon at him. Loki fell into a crouch and his blade got the man in the femoral artery. The man collapsed and raised his weapon to fire. Natasha shot him in the head.

At the other side of the car, another agent crumbled to the ground when the beam of Stark’s propulsor hit him in the chest.

An arm grabbed her by the throat. She twisted around and swung her elbow. It connected with the attacker’s nose and the man reeled. In the corner of her eye, she saw Loki, still low on his feet as he rammed into another agent, pinning him to the hood of the car. The blade blinked and blood gushed from the sliced throat.

Her attacker yanked away and fired at her. She dodged, and the bullet only grazed the side of her head. A blast swept the guy off his legs and Natasha finished the job with a bullet between his eyes.

Loki was at the last attacker. He already knocked the gun out of his hands and the man was now holding a knife as well. He lurched at Loki and Loki ducked, his own blade aimed at the opponent’s stomach, but his hand faltered and he missed. There was blood dripping down his fingers. The agent charged again, and Loki grabbed his wrist and yanked, changing the trajectory of the attack. The man stumbled, but immediately jumped back to his feet and charged again, with his shoulder this time, trying to knock Loki down.

She held her gun up and circled, hesitant to fire. She didn’t want to get Loki with the bullet. Stark circled on the other side. He only had one arm and the chest piece of the armor on.

It was unexpected to see that Loki’s fighting style had so much in common with her own. He was keener on avoiding blows and using the rival’s strength against them than on frontal, open attacks. An approach for someone who learned to fight from a losing position against stronger opponents.

The man’s fist was aimed at Loki’s ribs. Loki dodged again and swung his leg at the agent’s shins, knocking him over. He threw himself on the man, bodily pinning him to the ground. His hand lost purchase on the weapon, the knife slipped from his bloodied fingers and clattered to the ground. The man used the opening and brought his own blade up.

A laser ray got him across the throat.

And that was it.

_Damn._

Loki got up to his feet and swayed. Natasha jumped, but Stark was quicker.

“You could’ve left someone for us, you know,” Stark quipped.

Loki huffed out a laugh and leaned against the car. His right arm was dangling at his side uselessly. He tried moving his fingers and his face twisted in pain, as more blood dripped down and seeped into the dirt.

“That’s what you get for attacking three Avengers on a field trip,” Stark said and bent over, picking Loki’s abandoned blade, completely unaware of Loki’s utterly confused glare. “Is that my cheese knife?”

Loki rolled his left shoulder.

She reached for her own blade and cut through Loki’s coat, then his shirt. There was a gunshot wound, right through his shoulder joint. “Shit,” she hissed.

“How bad is it?” asked Stark.

“I’m not sure,” she admitted, inspecting the wound. She pressed on it and Loki’s breath wavered. “It’s not fatal. Yet. But it needs medical attention, immediately.”

“We can’t exactly barge into the nearest hospital.”

“I’m aware. What about Bruce?”

“We are still hours away. And, even if I gave Loki the armor, he won’t be able to fly that far on the backup power. Or steer with only one arm functional.”

 _[It’s fine,]_ Loki showed, using his left hand. _[I can make it home.]_

“Unconscious, maybe, and that’s only if you’re lucky,” she judged. He was losing blood and the location of the injury made it hard to stop the bleeding using field methods. “Stark, find me something to…”

“Can’t you use your magical mumbo-jumbo to fix it?” Stark asked instead.

“I…” she bit her lip, considering. “The gizmo works, right?”

Loki nodded.

“It still leaves the physical effects,” Stark warned.

“Is it worse than how the wound hurts, now?” she asked, turning to Loki.

He shook his head, then his brows furrowed. _[You will tire.]_

“I’ve healed worse. You two can keep me safe if I pass out. Which I won’t.”

She waited for the answer. There was hesitation in Loki’s eyes, and she wasn’t going to do it without his explicit consent.

“Come on!” Stark urged. “We are like targets on a shooting range here. Decision time!”

 _[Okay,]_ Loki surrendered with a sigh.

She closed her eyes and brought forth her core, then let the energy flow. Even left untouched for days, it still welcomed her warmly, buzzing in her hands and vibrating in her bones, shining like stars in the void of space. She let it seep into Loki’s flesh and it obeyed eagerly.

She found the obstacle – the bullet still stuck in the wound, lodged between the bones – and forced it out. Loki’s muscles strained under her fingers, but he didn’t move, not even an inch.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, “I had to get it out.”

The power streamed freely now, swirling and surging, glittering with streaks of brilliant light, and Loki’s flesh drank every drop, mending and pulling itself together, the dark spots in his aura lighting back up, one by one, until none was left. She brushed her fingers over his skin, still sticky with blood but now smooth as new.

“Here,” she said and pried her eyes open.

Loki’s eyes were on her, wide and shocked. He rolled his shoulder and blinked a couple of times.

_[When did you learn to do this?]_

“Uhm, what do you mean? _You_ taught me.”

_[Not this.]_

He pulled the scarf free.

She stared. The broad, half-healed wound that marred the skin of his neck just a few hours ago was gone. So were the cuts on his face and hands, even the old bruises around the gag. Then she realized she wasn’t tired. Not at all.

“Okay,” Stark said. “I have literally zero idea what’s going on right now, but we need to get the fuck out of here.”

\---

“Come on!” Stark grumbled and banged one of the plates he had scattered around on the backseat. Apparently, something didn’t work the way he intended and it categorically – according to the man himself – couldn’t wait till they got home. “Work with me, you piece of junk!”

Natasha was driving, which was hard to focus on when Loki’s hands kept on moving.

“For the umpteenth time, I have no idea how I did it.”

_[It’s not something that just happens.]_

“I know, but… The last time I used my magic was when I reached out to you and after that…”

_[That was truly you?]_

“Uhm… Yeah?”

 _[I thought…]_ He took a deep breath and looked out of the window. _[I thought it was just a dream.]_

She chuckled and immediately realized how unfunny it really was. He believed the promise of escape she brought him was only a figment of his own imagination. For days.

She sighed. He was here, and it was in the past. Now they had to make sure it stayed there.

 _[You had to travel the secret paths to reach me that far,]_ he said. _[You found your way. On your own.]_

“So, I’m awesome after all?”

_[Yes.]_

She bumped his shoulder. “Thanks, space boy.”

\---

They took back roads and avoided all settlements they could for the rest of the way, so it was already well into the night when they reached the forest house.

Banner went out of the patio door the moment their car rolled into the driveway.

“Hi, Bruce,” Stark greeted him with a grin. “You won’t believe what happened.”

Banner’s face was solemn. “SHIELD’s gone,” he said.

\---

They watched the recording in the living room. Loki sat hunched over, with his hands around his knees, his face a poorly manufactured impression of indifference, but he vehemently refused suggestions to skip it and bore the entirety of the twenty-minute-long address with unflinching stubbornness.

Pierce spent ten minutes at praising Fury’s accomplishments and valor and there was not an ounce of honesty to any of his words. He fawned and pulled anecdotes of their shared past from his sleeve and the gathered press ate it up like a pack of ravished hyenas. When that buttering up was done, his face turned solemn and he went for the main attack.

_“As much as we are all deeply bereaved by the untimely passing of Director Nicolas Fury, we must look to the future with hopeful eyes, but also fully prepared for the threats that await us as humanity. It is my duty to guarantee that no more enemy takes us by surprise._

_“The Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division was established to protect us from those threats, act against them, be the vigil in the dark while we sleep peacefully. Sadly, the events of last year and the infamous Battle of New York proved it failed in that regard._

_“SHIELD’s prime team of heroes failed to prevent widespread destruction,”_ Pierce said from the screen and Natasha’s hands curled to fists. _“The project cost the national reserve two billion in dotation and another three in funds from the joint ventures of the World Council, yet the internal indecisiveness led to substantial losses, both in terms of human life and monetary expenditures.”_

“Fuck this guy, really,” Stark muttered.

_“Over the course of the last fifteen months the World Council has dedicated many deliberations to solving the pressing issues within the organization and came to alarming conclusions. The lack of oversight on this scale was an effect of years of negligence from the previous administration and drastic measures must be taken to ensure we will not find ourselves in a similar situation in the future._

_Thus, with a heavy heart, I announce a complete dissolution of SHIELD, effective immediately.”_

The room burst into an uproar and Pierce waited for it to settle down before he carried on.

_“As an alternative is still within the works and the tragic death of Director Fury forced us to advance with the plan sooner than intended, all the active missions, objective and field units are going to remain under the World Council’s full oversight, until further notice. Any questions?”_

Another storm rolled over the gathered audience as every single reporter in the room tried to get their question heard first.

Stark turned the TV off.

“Any conclusions?” he prompted.

“Pierce is a piece of shit,” Natasha said. “But that we knew already. Other than that? Now he has unrestricted access to every single asset Fury might have been keeping from him. He can do what he wants.”

“And we still don’t know what that is,” Stark summed up.

 _[They want to permanently eliminate all potential threats on Earth,]_ Loki said, his eyes fixed at some unspecified point in the darkness beyond the windows. _[Everything that’s not normal. Every abomination. Like me.]_

There was a moment of very uncomfortable silence. Banner shifted in his seat and took in a sharp breath as if he wanted to say something, but then changed his mind and remained silent.

“Is it just me, or is the use of ‘potential’ in that sentence really disturbing?” Stark said finally. “How do you know?”

 _[They gloated.]_ Loki said simply.

“Do you know, uhm, how they are going to do that?”

Loki shook his head. _[If the guards knew how, they never made me privy to it.]_

“So, what, Hydra’s ultimate ploy is… a mass extermination?” Banner asked. His voice was unstable, and he seemed pale.

“I don’t know what else I expected from a bunch of Nazis,” Stark uttered aloofly.

“But how? And of _whom_ exactly?”

“Well, that’s what we need to find out.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Loki could really use something that would make covering one's face socially acceptable, like - i don't know - a global pandemic or something?


End file.
